


nothing hurts more than your memory

by boiledegg



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Post-Captain America: Civil War - Fandom, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Brainwashing, Hurt Tony Stark, Kidnapping, M/M, Manipulation, Nightmares, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Sensory Deprivation, Slow Build, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-07-19 10:19:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7357351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boiledegg/pseuds/boiledegg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The written letter and cellphone never made it to Tony. </p><p>Tony never made it home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. pray you catch me but i still fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi this is my first fic in the fandom and my fic first in like forever so pls have mercy and i wrote this procrastinating for the exam I have in a few hours but i also just love these characters so much and tony is my baby so i hope you enjoy tysm oh also this is un-beta'd

Steve hefts Bucky effortlessly onto his shoulder. The unconscious man would most likely huff and puff if he were awake right now, but he wasn’t so that was that.

The captain looks down back at the fallen, metal man and meets his gaze.

_I wish it didn’t have to had come to this._

He licks his lower lip, a bitter taste tingling sourly in the cavern of his mouth.

He leaves, with unspoken words and a heavy heart.

The walk is quiet. It's unsettling to hear only the hollow wind and the crisp, echoing steps of his boots but Steve didn’t really care right now. His body is running on pure willpower, the adrenaline pushing through every atom of his tall, thick build to get his friend to safety.

The biting cold air hits his face when he pushes the steel door open with the arm that wasn’t holding Bucky. The quinjet is placed right where he landed it, albeit covered in more snow now that some time has passed. 

Steve shuffles and adjusts Bucky once more, before scuttling off towards the aircraft.

It shouldn't have come as a surprise really, to see T’Challa standing there with Zemo within his custody.

But Steve is way too exhausted in any and every way possible right now to process anything going on in his head.

He’d very much just like to collapse on a bed right now for about three days.

(Although that was quite unlikely as his super soldier serum requires him to be up and at it in the morning for a run or else he’d be struck with nerves and jitteriness for the rest of the day. No outlet for all the raging energy inside of him. No calm for a raging storm building up.)

Steve meets the Black Panther’s gaze and gives a small curt nod before opening up the aircraft.

He makes no comment when he saw the Wakandan King follow him inside with the criminal in tow.

Steve settles Bucky down gently on one of the seats. He straps down the other super soldier before heading off to start the engine. In the background, he could hear the clinking of handcuffs and restraints, and then light footsteps afterwards.

When Zemo doesn’t see Iron Man, he feels a rush of victory. The damage is done and his seed has been planted. Maybe he won’t have the privilege to watch it grow, leaving a wake in its destruction but he knows it's there. He laughs. It chills the air around them and leaves shivers down the spines of the superheroes.

T’Challa takes one glance at Zemo then Bucky before proceeding to the control room and settles on Steve.

“Come.”

* * *

It’s cold.

Cold is actually quite the understatement and if there were any other words that Tony could process in his beyond intelligent mind, he would have spewed them out. Cross that out, there is actually an addition he wants to add to his previous statement.

It’s _fucking_ cold.

The chill seeps beneath the wreckage of his armor and straight into his bones. The dull ache settling in between the spaces of his ribs (Or at least that's how it felt like). He's definitely getting way too old for this shit.

Tony chuckles, but the tone is bitter to his own ears. 

Years of building himself up, creating his empire of greatness, and here he is, on icy cement flooring and wasting away to his death.

Maybe this is his punishment.

He can hear the sickening laughter of Howard, _"Oh how you've fallen Tony. You knew this was coming one day. My boy, you should have known better."_

He can feel the anger, the pain, the sadness, the full throttle of  _emotions_ and pushes it down as fast as it came.

Having a meltdown in Siberia was not the most ideal situation.

Tony honestly didn’t want for the situation to go this far. He was ready to make his amends and say his apologies. He was ready to set things right with Steve, ready to make a truce between all of them, and then came the goddamn video.

_Twisted, mangled flesh._

He squeezes his eyes shut and counts down from ten.

_Gasping for air, desperate for life._

Then came the lies. Feelings of betrayal and hurt were only cracking the surface of what he felt.

_Lashes fluttering, whispers of plea._

He swallows down the bile that threatened to come up. He should’ve known. For a genius, Tony feels incredibly dumb. Of course, it had been so obvious from the beginning.

He’d been fooled, by the others and by himself. It would do him some good to learn from this. (But when had he ever?) It was clear who Steve chose. Without fail, an accuracy with no flaws, Tony left behind with more than a shattered suit of armor. 

_He’s my friend._

Tony bites his lower lip in frustration. If he slips now, he’ll never stop, he can’t stop. He won’t be able to fix himself.

He's an engineer. 

But the extent of that knowledge and technical ability doesn't extend to mending a broken heart. 

_Inhale._

_Exhale._

First things first. He struggles to get onto his feet and hisses when his left arm feels like it’s lit on fire. Still, he tries. He fails the first few times around but finally sets upright on his toes. The metal suit clanks and screeches with his movements. He’s not sure how long exactly he’s been out of commission. With the reactor in his chest ruined, Friday was cut off, along with any communication elsewhere.

He glances behind him and judging from the outside sky, he suspects it’s been a good couple of hours since he was knocked unconscious. He does another mental assessment of his injuries. There’s no doubt that a couple of his ribs are cracked or broken. Judging from the deep ache on his chest, there is internal bleeding there from the impact of the shield. The broken left arm was obvious when he was trying to get up. He trails off and mentally lists his other ailments.

His limbs are stiff and he’s in pain but he trudges and searches for a first aid kit.

If he were to be completely honest with himself, some part of him just wants to lay there and die. But he doesn’t want to be selfish like that. The gasping, last breath of a doctor from Afghanistan echoes in his head. There are still reasons for him to go back.

Villains are always on the loose (seriously how do they have the time?), more effective inventions need to be made (for both the future and the success of his company), and hamburgers (he could eat four about now). And Rhodey. Oh God, Rhodey. His heart aches. It feels like he's splintering off into needles. He could never forgive himself for letting that happen to his best friend.

He’s trembling, the edge of a panic attack coming because he’s in the sky again and he sees his friend drop down like a fly again. He rockets, he stretches but still Rhodey slams into the Earth. He opens the helmet hatch and sees and everything in the world stops, the beat inside his own chest not an exception.

Rhodey, Tony had to get back to Rhodey.

With that in mind, Tony slowly wobbles, peering into the empty rooms for either first aid or substinance. The hallways are long, dark, and silent. It keeps him on his toes, jittery with caution.

He stumbles upon the first aid kit after the fifth room. He opens it with his right hand and lays out the contents on the table. A clang startles him and his left arm jerks, knocking the supplies onto a keyboard of switches. He yelps in pain and does a perimeter check before coming back and treating his boo-boos to the best of his abilities. (Where is Bruce when you need him?)

In another shelf, he finds a blanket and takes it with him. He’s tired and food can wait until tomorrow. Lord knows how long he lives without it when he’s in his workshop on an invention binge. He ventures off to find a suitable place to rest and settles on a hard, mattress in the corner of what is presumably the med bay.

Sleep doesn’t come easy to him. It never does and Tony can’t remember the last time he’s actually slept at an appropriate time for an appropriate amount of hours. Fortunately, the weight of all recent events allow him to knock out once he’s curled the blanket around himself.

A red light blinks.

The next day he spends reading the archives. It leaves his stomach queasy and unsettled. The inhumane experiments, the torture, the failures all explicitly detailed in the reports. Lengthy text explaining the gruesome and gory sins enacted upon innocent victims. It’s more than he wants to know.

He swivels the chair around.

Communication is still a problem. Being stuck in the middle of Siberia with outdated equipment is a nightmare. Either the technology is dead or works faultily and Tony misses his tower. He misses the comfort of his home and the hum of his equipment. Deciding he’s read enough, he walks off in search of food.

It takes enough time (his stomach is angry, he can tell by the noises) but he finds cans of food in a cabinet. It should probably throw him off that the food isn’t expired yet but he’s too hungry to care.

Tony looks for a can opener and aha!

Beans, he blanches. Beggars can’t be choosers and he certainly didn’t have the illusion of choice right now. He swallows down the rest of the can and throws it on the ground. He traces his steps back into med bay and curls up and closes his eyes. Stomach full and the promise of tomorrow, he drifts.

* * *

It comes to his attention that he is not in the same place he fell asleep in.

Tony tries to get up, he can’t. He does the next best thing and squirms. His body is bound, limbs tied down and locked tightly. There’s an IV of lord knows what inserted into his arm. It’s worse. This is officially worse. His eyesight is still adjusting, having been used to the dark areas of the Siberian hideout.

“How does one have so much bad luck?” He grumbles quietly. There’s really nothing he can do and by experience, he knows he’s been kidnapped.

So he waits.

Hours, minutes, seconds pass by (in reality it’s probably about thirty minutes) and he’s annoyed. Tony just wants this to be over with to beat the shit out of whoever took him and find a way back. Time is ticking and he’s not in the mood to be patient.

“Tony Stark. What an honor to meet you in the flesh.” Ah, there they are.

“I wish I could say the same buddy. But you know, with you kidnaping me and all, that ain’t happening,” Tony bites back.

“I’m a real fan of your work. It takes a genius to recognize another one.” The man says giddily, disregarding the hostility.

“Everything of mine is a work of art. The real question is: who are you?”

“Oh, please forgive my manners.” A youthful middle-aged man steps out and into his field of vision. Ivory skin, short black hair slicked back, and sharp facial features. A white coat dons his person, a collared button up and black slacks underneath. If the situation was more appropriate, Tony would say he was handsome.

“I’m Dr. David Stein. it’s a pleasure to meet you.“

“Definite not the same sentiment,” Tony replies back. He leans his head back and hears the IV being changed. It’s dark again.

Tony’s consciousness flows in and out for the next couple of weeks. He’s hazy and any attempt to think is thwarted by the drugs that keep him narcotized. A rush of personnel come into the room to change his IV, attend to his injuries, and leave as quick as they came. They look like blobs at best. He’s also always clean when he awakes so he assumes that they are also washing him (he can’t get a break here, what happened to consent?).

“We are not going to make the same mistake.” Stein says gently the next time Tony wakes up. He cups Tony’s face, gently like a lover. He caresses Tony’s lips, his nose, and drags his fingers across the restrained man’s cheeks.

“Those bumbling fools were idiotic and careless with the Winter Soldier. A disgrace to the name of scientists.” There’s a grimace on his face.

“But with me, you...” He pauses a little for the dramatics, “You are going to be the perfect creation.”

“I’m already perfect, you asshole.” Tony huffs with spite. The nerve of these villains!

The doctor laughs. It was a little strange like a sound that could only be accomplished through painstaking patience, a type of unquenched hunger.

“There’s room for improvement and we have all the time in the world to make you right, Tony,” he says pleasantly.

“Well I’m an important man. You know, Iron Man and all.” He chips in. “I’m going to get out of here, one way or another. Either someone is going to come get me or I’m going to kick your ass and bust my way outta here.”

Although the first option is pretty unlikely after everything that’s happened. A bluff. A disturbing pit settles in his stomach. He really is on his own with this one. He knows for a fact that no one was coming.

Tony shuffles a bit in his restraints, testing out the bindings. He grit his teeth at the sharp pain that rockets through his body.

“Oh honey.” The doctor chuckles.

“No one is coming for you. No one is going to save you. Not even yourself. Not after I’m done with you.” The last part is soft. Tony barely hears it, and he probably wouldn’t have if he wasn’t straining his ears to be alert.

Stein stalks closer, the soft tapping of his leather loafers echoes. The stale, clipped sound rings in the quiet room. A shuffling of fabric tells Tony that the man was nearby.

Tony jumps when a hand touches his sweat mixed hair, smoothing it out of his face. He could feel the dirt and grime rubbing on his skin. To say he feels disgusting was an understatement. What he would do to be home and take a long hot shower.

His stomach swoops heavily.

Home.

He misses his tower. He misses his workshop. He misses his infuriating mechanical babies that only know how to cause him trouble but happen to be perfect and loving when he least expects it. But most of all, he misses Jarvis.

 _Oh, Jarvis_ , he inwardly cries.

His Jarvis.

He longs for his AI. He hasn’t been able to process and mourn the death of his AI properly yet. This whole superhero business, his company, and everything that revolved around the both of them has kept him so preoccupied. It's kept him away from the bottles (that silently wait for him), away from the memories (that begin to creep on him). A flash of jumbled orange coding flickers and he’s a hair away from throwing up. Jarvis is not Jarvis anymore. Jarvis is gone. 

Before he delves into his thoughts anymore, his head jerks to the side.

Tony tenses and grimaces at the tightness of his muscles and the reappearance of the sharp ache that came from it.

“Thinking are we? I have to tell you, I’m a very jealous man. I don’t like sharing.”

“Thank fucking God we’re not dating then.” Tony snorts. Oh, the troubles his mouth gives him. Howard always said he could never keep his trap shut.

The doctor smiles, not taking any offense at all.

“I think you’ll find that I’m not like any of the others here.” As if that made him feel any better. HYDRA was HYDRA, nothing about them was good. For all he knows, this man could be worse than the standard HYDRA bad.

Tony feels a spine-tingling chill.

“Some say I’m unconventional. But I find my methods...the most effective.” And that probably confirms Tony’s fear that this guy is deranged and he’s worse. It’s as obvious as flashing, bright lights in the night.

* * *

“Ask nicely and we can end early for today.” Stein cooes.

“I’d rather take a bullet than beg to your ugly mug.”

“Ask and you shall receive.” The doctor croons cheerfully.

Before Tony could register anything, a scream was ripping itself out of his throat. The loud bang of a shot being fired rings and all he could feel is pain. His thigh is bleeding like a fiend and his outburst continues when he feels a gloved finger dig into the hole.

His mouth is gagged, stuffed with a cloth to shut him up. The finger pokes and prods the injury until it finds the bullet and then digs around it. The red, dripping flesh ripped and mangled. Stein whistles and pulls out the bullet and places into on a metal tray beside Tony’s head.

The doctor then proceeds to grab a needle and thread, slowly weaves through the skin. In and out, the wound is sewed shut. Tony never stops yelling, muffled completely by the makeshift gag. He’s always taken off the painkillers when the torture starts so he feels the full force of it. So he feels the weight of his situation, a tactic to make him break. Too bad he's known to have a stubborn streak.

“Now, let’s try again,” a hand pulls the cloth out.

“ _You motherfuck_ -” Tony pushes aside every other emotion but anger because anger is reliable, anger is his go-to and he’s fuming.

“Wrong answer,” Stein interrupts, mouth bent down in a frown.

The process repeats itself. Each time with a different method. The second time around he gets stabbed in the kidney and the doctor drags the knife across his torso like he’s creating art. The third time Tony gets his toenails ripped off with wretch. It doesn’t stop until Tony is unconscious and covered in stitches and blood.

* * *

His body jerks and convulses.

He spasms uncontrollably. He could feel his body distorting. Bones cracking back into place, muscles twisting themselves together again, skin molting into a new soft layer. Cells dying and re-forming. Destruction and creation, if he wants to be poetic. He couldn’t tell if it was his own body anymore. It feels foreign. He feels possessed. He knows it's his body but it certainly doesn't feel like it anymore.

It's disorienting and unsettling.

When his body finally settles down and stills, there’s a hand that brushes through his hair. A light scratch here and there, Tony decides to opens his eyes. He doesn’t stop the hand motions because he literally can’t with the restraints holding him down and because it’s weirdly holding him together right now. (How pathetic is he.)

The doctor is there, smiling that smile he always does.

“You know I wouldn’t do this to you if I didn’t want the best for you, right?”

At that moment, Tony just wants to laugh. The power of choice has never been in his hands. Fate, or destiny, or whatever, pushes and pulls him. The force of gravity crushes him into the ground and he’s fighting. Always fighting because decisions are always made for him. Decisions he's never wanted but some higher power felt he needed. He's entirely sick of it.

Stein can tell by the look on Tony’s face that the other man doesn’t believe him. But the petting continues and the doctor doesn’t really mind, he wasn’t expecting this to be easy at all. But he licks his lips. The reward will come with his patience and hard work.

“I’ll make you see, don’t worry.” His conviction is strong.

* * *

_This night, he dies._

_He dies and dies and dies._

_The vibranium shield rocks and quakes his core. Relentless force shaking his soul. Tony feels, more than hears, the armor cracking. Each slam makes him feel heavier. The weight above him crushing his insides. Another hit and then a pause._

_He blinks and looks up._

_A blue gaze penetrates him._

_Steve’s mouth is moving but the noise is warbled. Tony can only hear the clanging of metal colliding with metal, the rush of air that pushes the physics of the shield down. It continues for what feels like years and Tony feels so done. He is drained to the bone._

_He stares at Steve, tearful._

_“I don’t want this.” He’s desperate. He’s tired._

_“This isn’t about you. You make everything about you.” The voice finally clear now._

_“I don’t want this anymore.” He repeats._

_“I did it for all of them. I did it for Bucky. I did it for you.”_

_“I don’t want to be here anymore.” He keeps his gaze and a tear slips._

_“I did it for me.”_

_The shield is brought down again._

* * *

He wakes up screaming. His wounds feels as fresh as the day they happened. He knows he’s coming out of a drug induced sleep when he groggily and sluggishly comes back to the present. The line between dream and reality become clearer. There are arms keeping him in place as figures administer more sedatives. The drugs kick in soon enough because his limbs become pliant and loose. 

His throat feels raw and in the next thing moment, he finds his head placed in a lap and the bindings keep him strapped to the table.

Stein is humming a sweet tune. It's high pitched and the melody swoops around slowly. It’s nothing Tony recognizes though. The doctors hums the same melody every time.

He feels extremely defensive in these moments, at least the first few times he was.

“I was once a naive boy myself. I believed the world was full of good. It was wrong, I was so wrong. And it wasn’t until I saw you on the news that I began to believe and have faith again.” Stein recounts, rubbing his fingers across Tony’s forehead. The lines drag across his skin and Tony continues to feel them even when the fingers disappear.

Tony has no energy and keeps silent.

“I was small, an easy target to bully. Brightest kid in my class and mother was never proud. Grew up in a single home, my father fled early on before I was born. She was always spiteful, even to her last breath.” He cards his hands through the captive man’s thick strands.

Something in Stein shifts and it’s menacing. Tony cowers a little, he’s helpless and he doesn’t have it in him to take another beating right now.

“She decided she was fed up with me and chokes me while I’m in bed one night. I grab the pocket knife on my nightstand and stab her in the carotid artery. I keep at it until her grip loosens.”

His gaze is predatory and Tony feels like the prey.

“I killed her.” Then all at once, the tense air dissipates. Tony doesn’t have a clue why he’s being told this story.

“But I won’t kill you. You’re my redemption.”

* * *

Tony could feel the heat radiating on his chest. He tilts his head down as far as it could go. Sweat beads at his temple and he’s resisting and wriggling around as much as he can. He refuses to let this happen and his eyes are darting around for an escape route.

The sweltering branding iron hovers right above the scars left over from the vestige of his arc reactor days. The shape of it familiar, it was the HYDRA insignia and Tony feels a shot of fear run down his spine.

It comes down without notice.

He’s wailing.

The brand, hot and red, on his chest. The searing pain pulsates mercilessly. He can hear the rush of blood in his ears, only intensifying the experience. Tony feels the skin on his chest contort and rearrange itself. Sweat continues persperating on his forehead and drips, a sheen covering his body. 

It’s off. The burn still humming and throbbing but the cool stale air relieves him a little bit. There's not enough air for him and he’s gasping and crying at the same time. He reeks of pain and humiliation.

“You’re mine now.” The doctor sighs sweetly.

It’s in this moment where Tony feels a truth in those words, like he’s never going to escape.

* * *

“I watch the news you know,” Stein starts suddenly.

“I know about what’s happened. Ultron, the Accords, I’m aware of all of it.” Tony feels gross in his sweat and blood.

“Captain America. The Winter Soldier. The Avengers. I’ll protect you from them.” Running his fingers through Tony’s hair. It’s become quite the ritual and it bothers him. After every set of torture, the doctor comforts him. Still feeling the after effects of his rather delirious nightmare, he unconsciously leans into the touch.

It was gentle, soft even. A contrast to the horrific terrors, the never ending torture and he feels himself settling down a small amount. Tony despises himself.

“You’re not in the wrong you know.” Another brush, the touch light and feathery.

“You always putting yourself out there for others. There’s good intentions, even I can feel them.” A rub at his neck.

“I’m only in it for myself. Selfish is my middle name.” A lie easily.

“We both know you’re lying.” This time Tony is silent.

“Those traitors don’t deserve you. Don’t know your value.” He cups Tony’s face and looks him dead in the eye.

“But I do. And I’ll take care of you.”

“I’ll never do what you want.” Tony’s eyes still have a fire in them. It’s small and he’s insanely exhausted but it’s there. Burning and waiting, he still fights.

“Oh but Tony, trust me, with time you will. And you will of your own volition.” A needle finds its way into his arm again.

A twisted smile is the last Tony saw before everything bleeds red and he’s hollering again.

* * *

_The ground beneath feels damp. A stench of rotten flesh floods his nose and he covers_ _his mouth, vomit threatening to spew. His vision sharpens and the world comes into view._

_This time he doesn’t bother to cover his mouth, retching out his stomach. The pasta from last night is definitely there somewhere, along with the scotch he drank._

_Bodies on bodies, savagely torn and ripped apart. Some of them familiar, many of them not. He’s choking and vomiting to the side again once he sees the red, white, and blue. Again when he sees the metal arm glinting elsewhere._

_“You’re quite unbelievably naive,” Ultron rumbles. Tony jumps, startled by the voice he thought he’d never hear again. He wipes his mouth with the edge of his t-shirt and his hands on his pants._

_The sentient robot is laying at the top of the pile, the same as Tony had last saw him. Body of metal as good as done._

_“Says the one who met his end already,” Tony retorts quickly._

_“Liar, Liar. ” The deep mechanic voice sings. He haunts him, haunts him like a vengeful ghost. Tony can never escape from him. He knows this and it frightens him._

_“I’m a part of you. I’m a reminder of your flaws, your shortcomings. I am you.”_

_“You’re wrong. I’ve learned from my mistakes. I’m helping people and I’m trying to the best of my abilities to make everything right,” he rambles and Ultron chuckles. The ground vibrates in return, and the bodies are crumbling and the robot is tumbling down._

_“It’s cute how you fool yourself,” he cuts Tony off mid-rant._

_“It makes watching your downfall so much sweeter.” A rusted hand grips his leg and he’s trying to shake it off before he knows it. He walks backwards, he wants to be gone from here. He trips over a dead, rotting ankle and falls onto his back. That’s all it takes for Ultron to crawl his way up on Tony until the robot is hovering above him. His face is wrecked, one eye left and a mouth permanently placed in a cackling smile._

_A bright red eye peers into him and he’s never felt so exposed before._

_“I’ll always be with you.” It feels as ominous as it sounded._

_The robot heats up and starts melting and Tony’s burning and writhing. Ultron is seeping beneath his pores, into his bloodstream, into his brain. He’s yelling, his ears are ringing and his nose is blasted with the odor of seared flesh and iron. Ultron’s face is directly above his._

_“Always.”_

* * *

The silence makes him nervous.

It’s why the workshop feels like his safe place. The beeping and rumbling of equipment is soothing to his nerves. The loud, blaring of guitars riffs and vocals from his favorite 80s rock bands are like a lullaby to his ears.

Tony has never been one to sit still. If his hands aren’t moving, it’s his legs. If not his legs, his hands. If not anything else, then his brain is constantly moving, six steps ahead from what he was thinking a moment ago. He lives life in the future, rushing past the present. It’s why other people had have such a hard time keeping up with him. So when he slows down, when it’s quiet, he is at a loss. 

When he’s not sedated up in a bed with meds, when he’s not being tortured, he’s locked up and thrown into a pitch dark room. His eyes are blindfolded, his ears are covered, and his nose is clenched shut with a clip. He breathes through his mouth. He’s deprived of all of his senses aside from touch. The fabric of his clothes feel constricting and itch at his skin.

The room is incredibly small. He only has enough space to spread his legs straight in front of him and even then his feet are tightly pushed against the wall.

He sits there for hours at a time. At least, it feels like hours. There's no sense of time, he's either regretfully awake or sedated into sleep. There's no windows of sunrises and sunsets. It's only synthetic lighting and darkness. Hunger peaking and falling, only agitating his anxiety. He finds himself touch deprived, affection deprived, _everything_ deprived. Tony is finding himself being destroyed from the inside out.

The worst is when they tie him up in a straight jacket. The nurse will then proceed to stab a needle none too gently into his neck. The color of it disturbs him, a bright neon orange. And back into the room he goes, except infinitely worse.

It _itches_. It scorches. He wants to tear himself apart, he wants to rip himself to shreds, he wants his existence to end. It’s unbearable and he’s left there. Stagnant, unable to move, and in agony. When the door opens again and Stein is outside, Tony is in tears and babbling to himself.

Stein then scoops up the incoherent man into his arms and Tony huddles close. He’s insatiable for touch. He craves it. It’s the only way he feels present. His mind wriggling between what is real and what is his own hallucinations. In his spout of insanity, he’s even willing to degrade himself to cuddle up to the fucker who’s causing this whole shabang in the first place.

He’s shaking uncontrollably, he’s crying. But now he feels the warmth of another body and he breathes.

* * *

_“Tony, darling. Please smile, you know how your father gets and I just want this night to go without any trouble for once.”_

_His mother adjusts his tie before heading out. Bright, bright lights. The constant shuttering noise was a distorted melody of its own.  He closes his eyes and follows. His mouth easily finds a smile with lies, lies, lies hidden behind his teeth._

_Howard is already inside, having arrived at the event long before his wife and son had. Tony can see from afar, the man has a wicked smile, shaking hands with colleagues. It’s familiar because it's the exact same one Tony wears and he hates himself. He hates Howard._

_The space around him breaks and blurs._

_He’s in the old car._

_The steering wheel under his fingers, leather worn and heavy. The engine purrs and he knows the street in front of him. The drive is sweet and familiar. Before he knows it, it’s chaos and the car is swerving, spinning, and colliding into a tree. It happens all in what felt like a matter of seconds, Tony_

_Tony feels disoriented, shaking the wake of what is probably a concussion from the whiplash of the collision._

_Howard is in the backseat, draped across the cloth. At first glance, he looks asleep with a sort of disgruntled expression but the gunpowder smell and crimson on his front says otherwise. Tony shifts his eyes and stares. He meets his father’s gaze, eyes now open._

_“Failure.” Howard trails and repeats, no intake of breath between his words. Like a broken record and Tony listens._

_His mother is sitting in the passenger seat. Her throat purpling and broken, eyes bloodshot red, and she holds his hand. The grip is frightening tight and his bones are creaking and crumbling underneath it._

_Hands are crushing his throat from behind, Howard is relentless and keeps up with his mantra. A motorcycle engine reverberating in the background._

_“Tony, darling. Smile.”_

* * *

He gasps for air. Lungs tight and head wet, he knows he’s been underwater. It’s not uncommon and it’s definitely his least favorite way to wake up these days. He doesn’t know exactly how long he’s been here. He doesn't know how long he's been in the water.

At this point, he’d rather be dead.

Every day his body is pushed to the brink of death. He could almost hear the sweet call of the dead sirens until an injection of fucking healing factor had him heaving for air. He’d seriously like to meet whoever made the damn thing and punch the lights out of them.

What scares him the most is the willpower leaving his body.

He feels the fight leave him. Tony has to remind himself of Rhodey constantly. Has to remind himself of what’s waiting for him back home. (But is anything really waiting for him back home?) But his sanity is slipping and his reasoning is slipping and everything is slipping. He’s scared, he’s terrified.

He got a glance of himself, a reflection on the edge of knife during a session. He didn’t know who he was looking at. He didn’t know who he was becoming.

“Are we going to be good today?” Stein asks.

“Please…” Stein perks up, a sense of excitement.

“Please _go fuck yourself_ ,” Tony finishes with the last of his resolve.

A whip lashes down this time.

* * *

_“We can’t be together.”_

_Tony is facing Pepper and they’re on the balcony right beside the bedroom. He feels his heart lurch because no, Pepper. Sweet, sweet Pepper. The gal who holds him through nightmares, carries him through his struggles, and always has a hand on his back._

_“I just can’t be the one that they return the corpse to.” Pepper’s voice breaks midway and a few tears drop. He’s ruining her, just like he ruins everything else, everything good that ever meant anything to him. Her hair is ruffled, her perfect makeup is blotched and smeared, her clothes are rumpled, and she’s barefoot, dirt crusting in her toenails and fingernails._

_He stares at her and her crazed eyes are dull, a divergent from her usual humbling, soft look._

_The floor beneath is collapsing, and he’s reaching for her hand. Her eyes are moist and she’s choking down a sob. Fingers clutch at her chest and then she’s shaking her head. Pepper turns around and walks away._

_The last sight he has of her is her small, frail back and it’s gone a second later._

_And then he’s falling fast. And he’s falling hard. There’s no end ground in sight. The force of air is stinging his eyes and he’s in limbo._

_He’s falling._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well that was quite the ride aha shit's gonna get worse and idk about you guys but ima slut for pain (its ok it will get better eventually it will just take time) ill try updating when I can (school and moving right now) but I'm crossing my fingers for a week pls come talk to me my dad says i need friends


	2. heaven aint close in a place like this

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Some people are born with tornadoes in their lives, but constellations in their eyes. Other people are born with stars at their feet, but their souls are lost at sea."  
> — Nikita Gill, Perspectives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this took me longer than i wanted bc life sucks but here it is!!! im still nervous about posting stuff but i present to you the next pain train stop this ended up being longer than i planned but that is good for ya'll so ta-da

Steve is a man not afraid to express and this extends to gratitude.

He could never pay back the debt to T’challa. The noble and enlightened king took them, fugitives and wanted, into his possession. He guided them all back to his homeland, far and away from the world's danger. The facilities are as aesthetic, elegant, and impressive as the man himself is. Steve could only look in awe at the beauty that surrounded him. (He's reminded of the amazement he felt when stepping into the brightly lit lab, robots whirring around and holograms spread out like the night sky)

It makes Steve a little ill with homesickness. He recalls his ma’s warm hugs and chicken noodle soup as he helplessly laid in bed, waiting for the cold to pass. He recalls back alley brawls with a solid back to his own, Bucky’s smug grin as his fist met a bully's face. He recalls the warm, savoriness of shawarma with rounds of tired laughter in a tight, small restaurant after the world's demise had once again been postponed.

It rushes all to him and now he just feels sick.

He recalls the chill of the deep ocean as his aircraft plunged into the ocean. He recalls the fall of his best friend into the dark abyss, his scream echoing as he disappeared into the distance. He recalls his heart broken like the torn limb of his broken best friend when he had found his childhood friend once again. He recalls the haunted gaze from a beat up suit of armor radiating with anguish, anger, despair all at once.

He desperately and selfishly wants everything to have worked his way. 

But Steve just can’t. He can’t lose Bucky again. He isn’t afraid to go to the ends of the earth for him. (Almost went there) He’s lost him one too many times, more than he’s ever needed. Bucky is part of the air he breathes, part of the way his lungs expand and deflate with life. Bucky is the only link to a life he once lived and one that he'll never get a chance to go back to again. He’d go crazy, in fact he _went_ insane to get him back (but how much did it cost him? who did it cost him?). 

He hides his face in his palm and sighs.

The tension that eased once he had Bucky in his arms off to safety found its way back. It’s back with a vengeance. It venomously preaches off to him what his actions have really done. The consequences of his decisions. 

Many call Captain America patriotic, the pinnacle of justice, a hero. But Steve Rogers, he is only a simple Brooklyn man.

* * *

The absence of his metal arm tips him off balance.

His strut is off. Bucky adapted to the weight shift on one side of his body to compensate for the heavy metal where his real arm used to be.

It’s weird to think that something so horrendous was such an integral part of him. (it’s only weird because he’s partly in denial) He wants to deny that the past seventy years happened. He wants to forget so bad. The memories come and go as they please but the most gruesome crimes settled in first. Long before he knew it, he remember most of his time with Hydra. He can remember their names, their last moments. He knows the way that he was assigned to kill them, he remembers the way each and every one of them died by his hands. 

It kills him and in a way he thinks of it as punishment for the heinous murders he committed as the Winter Soldier.

He’ll honor them, he’ll carry them with him for the rest of his life.

Bucky is honestly still amazed that he’s alive. A part of him is frustrated he’s still alive. He’s requested to go back into the cryo chamber. He uses the excuse that he doesn’t want anyone triggering him again, using him for unjust deeds. It’s only a small part of the truth and T’challa sees through it. T'challa sees through the exhaustion and guilt that Bucky holds in himself.

“Avoiding your problems will not fix them. It disrespects their memory.” T’challa says to him patiently.

There is no judgment, just a clear objective statement being said. It eases him a small amount. Bucky would much rather prefer no one to walk on eggshells around him. The blunt, honest truth is what he’s always preferred and it reassures him that T’challa feels the same. 

Bucky is running away and he knows it. He’s a coward who doesn’t want to face his problems. He wants to escape from them. He doesn’t want to face the world. He doesn’t want to face himself. He doesn't want to think about the past that he's had, the present that he has the deal with, or the future that will come. But he knows he can't be doing what he's doing anymore. He has to deal with his problems because he needs to own up to their memory, he needs to be okay with being himself (whoever that may be). 

He doesn’t request the cryo chamber after.

But he’s desperate, he’s confused and hurt and it’s all dizzying to him. 

The freedom to choose for himself is confusing. The matter of 'do or do not, it is in your hands' doesn't make sense to him. He's been so used to orders and commands. It was simple, instructions to follow and tasks to complete (mindlessly it's become his habit). That idea that he has the chance now to do things for himself makes him feel small. He doesn't even know where to start.

“Tell me, tell me when does the pain ever end? How do I make myself better?” Bucky begs to the king one afternoon.

T’challa strides forward and stands beside him. He places a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, Bucky doesn’t flinch like he expects himself to. The touch is solid and warm, an accurate reflection of the Wakandan King. 

“Mr. Barnes, the pain never goes away. It does get better but that is entirely up to _you_.”

* * *

“Stop it.”

Steve freezes in place.

“Stop projectin’ onto me!” Bucky curls in on himself, protecting whatever fragments are left of him.

“Buck...I’m so sorry. I’m just-” He licks his lips. “I’m not entirely right in the head either and I’m afraid.” Steve confesses.

“I’m afraid of you leavin’ me.” It comes out more choked than he intended it to be.

“I’m a man frozen by time, Buck. I woke up in a different place, different era. I was so scared, you don’t know how relieved and terrified I was that you were still alive,” Steve continues.

“I’m not the same person you remember me as. Hell if I’m even who I remember myself as. Most days I don’t even know who I am anymore.” Bucky’s fingers tighten in his hair. He feels like an afterthought of crumbles, the thoughts in his head are jumbled and uncertain.

Steve feels broken inside. He feels angry (at himself? At Bucky?) and he feels guilty. He’s being unfair and he knows it. It isn't fair to hold Bucky up to a standard. This version of Bucky in front of him isn’t the same one that has remained in his memory. And Steve’s not quite the same either, he's changed since the serum and since coming to the twenty first century. It settles uncomfortably in his innards that he is a stranger in Bucky's eyes. 

“You’re whoever you want to be. You’re whatever you want to be. Ain’t nobody that can change that.” Steve musters out.

“Not even me.” he adds after some thought.

“But you’re always going to be Bucky.” Steve lies to himself a little, he lets himself hold on a little longer before the illusion is gone, the man in front of him is no longer one he knows.

His hand tentatively hovers over the other man’s, contemplative, before settling over gently but firm and present at the same time.

“I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.”

This Steve knows is certain. Whoever Bucky becomes, whoever he decides to be, Steve will be there with him the whole way. 

Bucky gives him a hesitant look, the calculating cautiousness clear as day in his eyes. Steve uses the entirety of his willpower to compose himself. He’ll breakdown otherwise. He has to be strong. He has to keep fighting. (It’s all he’s ever known. It’s all he has at this point.) Whatever Bucky sees in Steve, it helps him confirms the sincerity of his statement. 

“I know, punk.”

A small upward quirk of his lips.

Steve counts his blessings.

* * *

With the situation settling down, Steve is ready to help his friends out of their imprisonment from the Raft. It goes much easier than he anticipates. The schematics of the prison is impressive, but he's seen better (He’s not called the strategist for nothing). He rounds everyone out of their cells, each responding with their own versions of gratitude.

T’challa continues to prove himself the humble, benevolent king as he provides refuge for all of them. The facilities are nostalgic to Steve (But they can’t stay there forever). He's reminded of the Avengers compound (and a little of Stark Tower). The thought of the Avengers stiffen him up.

It's unsaid that the civil war between them cut wounds deeper than any flesh wound could.

It proves to be difficult the first few months. Everyone is tense with unresolved emotions. Everyone is mourning in their own way. The situation doesn’t help since they are classified as outlaws and criminals and those labels make Steve’s blood boil.

The whole scenario of it all continues to escalate, with them counted as missing and their whereabouts unknown in their files. Again, Steve cannot express how grateful he is. T’challa and his country are at stakes with refugees in his lands but he still takes them. He shelters them and feeds them. Steve knows it's through the lingering will of how he felt for his father, but he appreciates it nonetheless. 

Natasha visits a few times, stealthily coming and going as she always does. She delivers them news of the rest of the world.

The Accords are still active, with Ross leading. But the tides are shifting, they've been starting to change. Protests have started once news had been leaked, the citizens are unhappy. Steve once glanced at the television and saw the small, youthful faces of this generation fighting for them. He teared up and almost cried that night.

Bucky keeps himself company in the meantime.

Taking the time to figure himself out, the conversation with Steve left him momentarily alright before another anxious fit happened. This time, Steve left him alone with space to breathe (although the sad, sullen glance didn’t escape Bucky’s eyes) because Steve is a good man, because Steve wants to be better and try for Bucky. Bucky knows all this and he appreciates that Steve is doing his best. 

But it doesn't stop the rolling of guilt inside Bucky's stomach.

If he closes his eyes, he’ll hear the tortured cries of his victims. If he attempts at sleeping, he’ll see the scenes of how he kills them again and again. He feels like he’ll never be free of them. He feels like they'll always have him in their hands. 

But then a sudden change of heart has him feeling a tad bit different.

Bucky isn't exactly sure when it started. Maybe it's been the constant tension, the constant stress, the constant meltdowns, the constant anxiety in the back of his head for the last few years before he'd allow himself to be taken with Steve and after. The stress in between periods where he'd find himself in Hydra, only to be erased again and again, leaving streaks of blood in his wake.

He’s sitting in a field within the compounds of the facilities they were dwelling in. It's spring now. The grass is cool to the touch, a tad bit over grown but still dewy from the evening mist. The sun is just about setting, ready to end the day and begin anew. He traces a small golden flower to his right. It's quite the contrast to the snowy, endlessly chill depths of the Russian planes, where winter feels almost yearly. 

He's absolutely tired of it all and he wants to be done with it. 

He's sick of the bone-chilling sweats from his nightmares. He wants to be finished with the screams that bounce around in his head. He wants to feel at peace with himself for once in his strange, new life and inside, deep inside somewhere, he knows that he should deserve that at least. 

It's a strange wave of revelation.

That the fate of his well being is in his possession. He can either let this consume him whole or draw acceptance and move on from it. That it wasn't his fault, it wasn't in his control to do the killings he did while under the influence of Hydra. He gave no consent whatsoever with what happened in his body or mind, as Hydra took every sense of himself possible and threw it in the garbage bin. Whether or not the terrors chase him, it doesn't change these facts. 

He decides on the latter that same day when the moon is high and the stars are twinkling in the dark stretch of the sky, the air is cold on his skin and makes goosebumps rise up, and the growls of wild beasts fill the silence of the night.

It doesn't completely stop the nightmares.

It doesn't completely erase his anxiety.

But it does make the weight of his shoulders lessen. It does make the small, unfamiliar smiles feel less guilt ridden. It does make the knot in his stomach unfurl the more he tells himself all the things he needs to hear. 

It makes all the difference.

* * *

“A gift from me to you.”

Those are the words Tony awakes to one day. It makes him break into cold sweat. He decides he doesn’t like gifts after the first one had left him aching for hours, the healing serum taking its delicate time to make his body all proper once more.

A click and a beep.

He feels the tightness on his neck.

He feels hefty cold metal caressing his skin.

It’s thick. It’s heavy.

He’s never felt so weighed.

He’s never hated more than in that moment.

He’s never felt so defiled than in that moment.

Metal, which has always without a doubt been a comfort for him, sacred to him, feels dirty to him now. The association of all the pleasure he’s had when working with it seeps into malice and distaste. He can’t look at it the same way anymore.

Tony panics, heart rate elevating rapidly. He feels like he’s going into cardiac arrest with how quickly his pulse shoots up (it should worry him but it doesn’t, enough evidence now that they won’t let him die, and by God does he desperately want to die).

He’s scrambling, arms tensing under the leather binds. Breath uneven, his fists tighten.

“The collar was drilled into your nerves and any obvious touch to take it out will provoke the collar into self-defense mode. Once it’s on, it’s on and even I myself can’t remove it from you.” A fingers draws patterns on his neck.

“I should also mention any more misbehaviors and...” Stein pauses.

With a flick of his thumb and the press of a button, Tony is screaming. His throat is raw. His skin is sizzling and every cell of his body is atrophying at the electric shock coursing through his nerves, his veins.

This by far is the most humiliating event that has happened. Trust, he’s had some pretty cringe worthy things done to him but this beats anything by far. Tony wants the ground to eat him before anything worse can happen.

“M’not your fucking pet,” he musters out, still tense and aching with pain.

“Of course, pets are quite primitive.” Stein hums in response.

“But you, my dear Anthony, are my prized possession.” An endearing swipe of the doctor’s thumb crosses the skin above Tony’s eyebrows.

Tony closes his eyes and breathes.

“I’m no one’s possession. Let alone yours.” Stein just responds with a laugh and nothing more. It’s silent once more and it does nothing to calm his uneasiness. Tony hears shuffling and feels the binds around him unlatch.

Without thinking, he lunges for the doctor, ready to give payback. The adrenaline pumps through his blood and the pain dissipates. He’s on his knees in a moment’s notice, the collar activated.

He grits his teeth and wills his body to listen to his angry demands. Tony crawls across the floor, barely making it to the doctor’s feet until he’s crippled completely by the jolts to his nervous system.

All while Stein calmly smiles at him.

“It’s not your decision to make. Call it fates if you will, but you are now mine Tony Stark.”

A clip and Tony feels a tug. He forces any energy left in him to look upwards, only to look back down just as fast, eyes red-rimmed from frustration.

A fucking leash, he’s attached to a leash in addition to his collar.

Letting him go was just a show, to reveal the reality of his position. To desecrate him beyond imagination. The brand on his chest aches, it aches and leaves a painful reminder of what’s become of him, what’s becoming of him. He hates it all.

Tony is dragged roughly back to the table, the leash leaving no mercy.

Every fiber of his being radiates in irritation. Upset doesn’t even begin to describe what he’s feeling right now. He’s so stuck fuming that he doesn’t notice he’s strapped again until a hand runs through his hair.

“Hm, seems a haircut is in order.”

Tony is still unsure how long he’s been held captive but by now, he assumes it has been more than a few months. He hasn’t had a look at himself in the time he’s been here. He’s not sure he wants to know.

The only sound in the room are the tiny snips coming from the scissors, the buzz of the razor, and the hum of that familiar sweet tune from the doctor. He feels his hair being groomed, though to what style he’s unsure of.

Stein rubs a hand on Tony’s jaw line, the motion mean to be comforting (he’s uncertain on how it actually makes him feel). It comes to his attention that his stubble isn’t there. There isn’t any trace of any kind of beard.

“Play nice.” _Or else_.

“Of course.” A fake business smile.

“Not, are you fucking kidding me?” Tony almost rolls his eyes.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that his sarcastic statement was the wrong answer to Stein’s warning.

He forgets the collar is there in his retort and is very quick to come to awareness of it when the collar pings to life and has him paralyzing in agony.

“I think you owe me an apology Tony. That wasn’t very nice and I’ve been very courteous.”

Tony isn’t in any position to give more than a few words, the voltage still very much there, but even if he could, he wouldn’t out of pure stubbornness and annoyance.

“So the silent treatment it is. Tony, I can do this all day. And I will until I get an apology.”

Tony thinks that this man has better things to do then torment him all day. Most of the day Stein isn’t with his prisoner anyways, probably off doing some other abhorrent crimes in the name of Hydra.

Tony thinks wrong.

His arrogance and assumption prove to be inaccurate. He’s left in pain and when he’s about to slouch and black out from it, the collar shuts off. Stein asks cordially again, Tony still refuses to answer.

The pattern goes on and on, it continues for what seems like a lifetime. Tony isn’t positive how long this specific session has lasted but it’s longer than any session he’s had thus far. He’s left scrapping for pieces of lucidity.

“It’s only one word, Tony. One word and we can be done with this.” There’s no impatience, no hint of dissatisfaction.

“In your dreams, you piece of shit.” A small resigned sigh and the sharp intensity inclines, if that was even possible. There’s only silence and slipped vocalization of his anguish.

“Sorry.” Tony grits out with as much bite as possible.

“That wasn’t too hard now, was it?”

The collar shuts down and Tony ignores it, he’s too blissed out by the lack of electricity coursing through his body. He’s also filled to the brim with shame that he’s let himself get to this point.

Stein pats his head, a reward for his efforts. His eyes crinkling at the corners in honest, sincere glee. Tony feels uncomfortably perplexed at the praise he receives.

* * *

_The putrid stench reeks havoc on his nose. It smells of the dead, the tears of the living, the anger and sadness melding all together. He's puking off to the side again, eyes watery at the heaving, the bitter taste in his mouth._

_Tony swipes a hand to rub at his eyes and stiffens when he realizes the moist, wet feeling that lays across his face. He looks down at his hands, his stomach clenches._

_His callused hands are covered in blood. The dark red staining and making itself known on his pale, sickly skin. He extends his gaze upwards and sees the wreckage of bodies, and back downwards when he sees what he's laying on._

_The dead bodies of the avengers. Hearts torn out, faces beaten bloody, limbs estranged and twisted. He feels utterly sick and readies himself to throw up again._

_“That’s all you know how to do, isn’t it,” Ultron states, not questions._

_Tony whips around fast and looks at the sentient robot, his face a mixture of a blank expression and a hint of denial. He tries to clean his hands with his ragged apparel but it does nothing to remove the treacherous color from his flesh. The heap of metal body rising._

_“You go on breaking things, even yourself.” The deranged broken body moves, the creaks and groans of the joints loud and making itself known but Tony’s ears are unattentive to it._

_“It’s never enough.” A flash of sleepless, restless nights in his workshop. The trepidation feeding into his flurry of work._

_“Drives you mad.” A flash of thrashing and throwing equipment, sweat soaked and angry, insane, and helpless all at once._

_“And you don’t even know it.”_

_Tony is huddled on the floor, smaller than he's ever been. Ultras looms in front of him, bigger than before, larger than life. His shadow covers Tony, and all he sees is the single blazing red gaze that captures him._

_“You can’t stop it.”_

_The chill from the metal hands cupping his face makes him shiver. The gaze is closer, it’s more intimidating. His secrets are out in the open and he can’t do anything to prevent it from happening._

_Ultron moves, his limbs stutter. He’s embracing his creator and his destructor. Tony hesitantly raises his arm and touches his failed creation. The metal begins to corrode and he realizes what he’s done, who he is, who he can never escape from being._

_Not before long, only the head remains and Ultron continues to stare into his soul, the scrap of metal’s last words raises the hairs on his arms, gives him goosebumps. It’s the truth of it that leaves him frigid._

_“You won't stop it.”_

* * *

A new day, another excruciating day.

“What do you want from me?” Tony finally chokes out.

The question has been eating at him the whole time he was here.

The same cycle of torture, bed, and room doesn’t change. The time could have been spent more productively for them, he could have been forcibly made to make weapons (as if that was happening though, he’d rather cut off his own hands before creating more weapons of mass destruction that will hurt innocent people).

“Patience is a virtue,” Stein tuts, as if chiding a small child.

“That doesn’t answer the question,” Tony responds petulantly. He’s not in the mood for riddles and games.

“It’s not about what I want from you. It’s about what you want for yourself.” He is officially irritated. He's sick of these weirdly contexted words and what he wants is blow up this joint (literally) and go home.

“I’m just here to make you realize the truth.”

The doctor smiles mysteriously this time and Tony is reminded again to be careful where he treads.

“Do your worst to me, I won’t break.” There’s still a hint of stubbornness to his words, proof of his lingering will. Although there is substantially less bite in it than there had been before. It worries him unconsciously and makes him even more anxious.

“In your suit, you’re invincible. But here, as you are now, Anthony, you are a mere mortal man.” Stein slithers around the table, tracing the edges of it.

“I’ve made men kneel and plead their lives to me. I’ve had men beg disgustingly for sympathy. I’ve had men grovel at my feet for mercy,” the doctor continues. That Tony can definitely believe, the treatment of his time here passes through his head.

“Besides, breaking is the least of your worries.” Stein smiles the same smile he always does.

“Brute force will get you nowhere,” the physician says knowingly. The winter soldier is a testament to that, the words hang between them.

“It takes tact and patience. A certain class and technique to create exquisite cuisine. I prefer this method much more, it delivers reward like fine wine.” He sighs blissfully.

“And you will be the finest dish of all.” Stein never fails to remind him of that but he feels nothing of the sort.

* * *

_He stands._

_Legs upright, spine straight. It’s the way he was raised, the way he operates. The gravitational pull of his very being wraps itself around this virtue._

_But here he is. In front of him, thick, lascivious caskets, horizontal in placement. Howard and his mother are both presentable in death, as they always have been. Prim and proper to the public eye, he scoffs._

_His mother looks ethereal. Hair curled around her, quite like a halo. Makeup touching up any imperfections. Her usual red lipstick donned her lips, untouched. Her thick, mascara done eyelashes grace her cheeks._

_Howard looks every bit of the man he presented himself as. Hard, stern and businesslike. His schooled into a slight frown, a small furrow between his eyebrows. His firm expression ticks Tony off, even in death, there is no relief from the never ending disappointment._

_“Stark men are made of iron,” Howard always recites to him._

_Tony stares and stares._

_He finally gives his eyes a rest when they protest from dryness._

_If he closes his eyes, he can hear the soft chiming of delicate piano notes._

_He can hear his mother’s soothing soprano vocals vibrating through the air, flowing through every oxygen molecules with ease._

_And he feels the laughter of a smile on his cheek as she embraces his smaller self._

_It’s warm. It’s comforting._

_But it’s not._

_But then he feels the arms curled around his small body crush his bones, bursting his blood out and bruising his skin._

_The once beautiful harmonics turn into shrieks of angry desperation. His ears are ringing, his body breaking._

_He struggles to find any semblance of the motherly figure that was there moments ago. The dissonance of the ear jerking notes now resound, shaking the floor._

_Anywhere but here._

_Anywhere but here, he recites._

_The coffins are beneath the soil of the earth now._

_Tony is still standing, unslumped. He’s not phased in the slightest and it partially bothers him. He’s been robbed mad of what should have been grief, anger, and desperation. He feels inhuman._

_Countless lessons and beatings to remain stone-hearted and steel willed are crafted into him, he curses every single one of them. The bruises under his clothes are a stark reminder._

_He's incapable of tears. He tries, he tries to muster an ounce of them, but his eyes are a dry desert with no oasis in sight._

_He feels as dead as his parents are._

* * *

Rhodey is a man of instinct.

He trusts his gut and goes with fast motions, a skill that’s saved his ass many times when on deployment. It’s that split second course of action that has separated between him being alive and him being buried underneath the Earth’s soil. And right now his gut is telling him that something is wrong.

He can’t quite piece together the puzzle perfectly.

Yet.

It wasn’t irregular of Tony to go off the radar for a few days, weeks even. He’s quite the sporadic fellow, a man who needs his space. Rhodey understands that. What he doesn’t understand now is that it’s been more than a few months and there’s been no sign of him. No contact, no irritating phone call in the early morning that he picks up grumpily but picks up none the less because Tony wants to complain about something (the man is always complaining but he loves him anyways)

It worries him like no other.

Physical therapy has been shit. He hates the fact that he can’t dash out of there and go find his best friend. He’s stuck to his routine exercises and meals. He’s stuck to his metal braces and crutches to keep him afloat.

But most of all, he misses Tony.

He’s gotten calls from Pepper and Happy, both checking up on him and seeing if he knew the status of Tony. (Pepper is up to the brim with CEO work and she’s frustrated at the absence of the engineer)

It takes him more time than he’s wanted but he’s finally able to move around on his own.

He books it out of there the moment his physical therapist gives him the okay and the paperwork is all filled out. He rushes, feeling like there is not enough time and by the time he gets to Tony’s place, he really feels like there isn’t.

Rhodey passes through security with ease and heads up into the penthouse. There’s an unsettling feeling in his stomach that continues to grow.

The penthouse is empty, unused. There hasn’t been anyone that has lived there for months. He looks up at the ceiling, not quite used to talking to a non-physical entity.

“Friday?”

It takes the system a few seconds start up, the small beeping noises giving him clues, and James is disturbed. Tony is always routinely and consistently updating his AI.

“Greetings Colonel Rhodes.”

“Where has-,” Rhodey licks his lips and hesitates but carries on more confidently, “Where has Tony been? He hasn’t been coming to my sessions and he’s usually been there and I know the man’s busy but it’s been _months_.”

“Boss, he hasn’t been home since his last visit with you. Communication with him was last cut off months ago in Siberia.” Friday reponds, a glum tone attached to her voice.

“Siberia? What the hell was he doing there?”

“He.” A pause.

“Shortly after visiting the Raft, Boss ventured off to Siberia to aid Captain America and Sergeant Barnes in their quest to prevent Zemo from awakening the other Winter Soldiers.”

“Oh good god there were more?” For fuck’s sakes, when does the world ever give them a break.

“Yes and they were already exterminated when the trio came on site.” That silences him for a little bit and he’s almost afraid of asking the next question.

“What happened afterwards?” But he says it anyways.

“A videotape revealed the true nature of Tony’s parents death and the Winter Soldier was the culprit.”

Friday doesn’t even have to continue from there because Rhodey knows where it’s leading and he’s sick. He’s so sick to his stomach, the remnants of his brunch uncomfortably close to coming out.

“Boss engaged with the super soldiers and the suit became impaired. That was the last point of contact that I was able to have with him,” Friday finishes.

Rhodey needs to sit down and he calmly uses his crutches to carry him to the nearest couch seat. He takes a stuttering breath and his face is in his heads.

“Where are you, you knucklehead?”

The heel of his palm rubs against his eyes. He’s more tired than he’s felt in years.

It finally feels like his age is catching up to him.

* * *

_He relives it again._

_Again and again and again._

_He’s dying once more._

_Tony stares up at the ocean blue eyes above him._

_He finds himself here, every couple of nights, every couple of dreams. It’s always the same place, the same time of day. The same shield that brings him down to his knees, to his back. The same bone crushing impact that breaks him all the same._

_He can hear the vibranium ring in the air. He can feel every crack of his suit, every crush of impact marking him in ways he can never fix. The noises are all mixed together and he doesn’t know when one strike ends and the other begins._

_“I don’t want to be here.” He says again as he always does._

_“I’m trying to protect us.” Captain America is relentless, the pace is brutal. He is brutal._

_“Please.” Tony begs this time._

_“‘I’m trying to protect you."_

_“Just let me go.” Another blow._

_“I’m trying to protect Bucky. “_

_“You’re hurting me,” Tony confesses for the first time, his eyes are moist and he’s sobbing openly now._

_“I’m protecting myself.”_

_And without missing a beat, the shield comes down again._

* * *

It’s a strange calm that seeps through the insanity of the rest.

He’s bound to the lab table, breath shaky as the remains of the healing factor leave his system and the injuries are at the tail end of being closed up completely. Tony is shivering violently and he knows it, the table and binds rattling.

Stein has Tony’s head in his lap again, absentmindedly brushing away the stray hairs on his face, detangling any knots and removing any grime. He smooths out the wrinkles of distress and rubs away the tension.

It's moments like these where Tony feels utterly trapped. He'd rather be beaten than have this kind of treatment. One he finds himself eventually wanting, one he finds himself utterly despising himself for.

He's insane. These last couple of months have left him hanging on a thin strand of rationality and sanity, a string that’s tethering onto the last of his strength. A string that is breaking.

He’ll take anything to remain sane. Even comfort from this motherfucker.

“It felt like I could never meet her expectations, never make her satisfied,” Stein starts.

Oh boy, he can relate. Tony knows a thing about disappointment and never reaching Howard’s standards.

“I was also trying. Trying to impress her, trying to prove my worth to her.” Stein recites all the awards he had won, all the hard work he put in, all the praises given to him but never from the one person that he wanted it from the most.

“I wanted her to love me.”

Stein draws circles onto Tony’s shoulder with one hand and runs a hand through Tony’s thick mane with the other. The tactile contact makes Tony seeth in frustration at how it calms him. How something so simple can lull his body’s trembling and make his heartbeat steady.

“It took her strangling me to realize that she never would.” A bitter laugh follows and Tony feels it down to his toes.

“Love is so twisted and cruel. It feels like the ghost of my mother is always chasing me, always following me until I end up in the same place as her so she can continue her demented ploy.”

Tony doesn’t look directly at him, but rather off to the side, reminiscing and trapping himself in a memory.

It’s a moment of vulnerability, he doesn’t even understand why he chooses to speak. Maybe it’s because this is a moment of human connection, one that comes from a deep, complex part of himself that he hates to venture into because it’s a piece of himself that he can’t let go of.

“It feels like I’m always talking to his shadow suspended on dust.”

Tony doesn’t talk again but Stein eats it up and continues to talk. He talks about the problematic nature of his mother, the good-natured act he puts up until he doesn’t. He keeps conversing with himself until Tony falls deep into an exhausted slumber.

Stein continues to watch the breaking man as he sleeps, the gentle touches continue.

It’s only a matter of time.

* * *

_Tony finds himself leaning against a wall, unmoving and still._

_She stretches her arm. Her hands reaches into the cavity of his chest, and circles her fingers around the edges of the gaping hole that lays there. Pepper hums pleasantly and proceeds with no hesitation._

_“Tony Stark has a heart,” She murmurs, quite content with an edge of contempt._

_The organ beats in her palm. Her thin and nimble fingers caress it lovingly, strumming the strings to play a tune. And then she’s pulling. And then she’s ripping. And then he’s coming apart, shredding at the seams._

_Ugly would be an incorrect description for it. It’s black as coal, the veins eerily protruding and pulsating irregularly. It’s disgusting and hideous. It’s horrific to look at. It’s him._

_“But no more.” And she smiles brightly._

_She crushes it with her bare hands, squeezing and squeezing the life out of it. Blood gushes from all the open chambers, red as it oxidizes outward. At least there’s one thing human about it, he miserably jokes. He still bleeds._

_He sits with a gaping hole in his chest, the missing appendage continuing to die out in the love of his life’s hands._

_Pepper is kneeling in front of him, her facial expression twisted now. She’s crying, small sharp intakes of breath and choking gasps. Tony hurts, he hurts because he knows that he put that there, he did that to her._

_“I’m so sorry.”_

_It comes out as tortured as he feels._

* * *

He’s in the room again.

Trapped, with only paranoia and terrors as his companions.

Today blesses him with another straight jacket episode. A different nurse from the rotation last week (or last month he wasn’t sure though, time escapes him these days) comes strolling in with that same disgustingly familiar neon orange filled syringe (he only knows this because it’s always the same serum and the way this nurse inserts it is different).

“Pucker up,” she says with some zing, with a little more humor.

It falls on deaf ears, sensory deprived yet again.

Tony is helpless. The anticipation is eating him. The needle comes closer and closer and he can’t tell. He’s scrunching his eyes shut, waiting for the inevitable. He feels the prick break the surface of his skin, flinches, and takes a deep gulp of air. The nurse leaves quietly, as though she never came.

Tony’s alone again.

He leans his head against the cement wall.

He feels a ghost of touch against his neck, his spine, the inner flesh of his thighs, and he’s quivering. The question always lingers on his mind. Is it real? Is it fake?

In his own mindscape, Tony starts to notice.

Something is wrong. He feels disoriented. Present but absent. Here but there. Anywhere but nowhere. It’s as if he’s in his body but not. Something in him has shifted and he doesn’t know for better or for worse.

He doesn’t feel the same man he was when he first came here, that’s for sure.

His head is all jumbled, kind of like scrambled eggs. Dates and events that he could before perfectly recollect have ebbed away and faded into blurry recollections. He’s not sure what is real and what is a figment of his imagination.

Tony doesn’t know how much of him is him.

A part of him is still resisting and Stein knows that. But the doctor is patient and that in itself is deadly. He’s ready to dedicate the time and energy to his hostage’s destruction and resurrection.

His eyelashes are drenched with the sweat dripping down from his forehead and into his blindfold.  

The silence rings harder than any hard rock vocal.

It does things to him. Unraveling him bit by bit, tearing away the reasonable flow of thoughts and leaving a rabid, ruthless rage of his anxieties and restlessness.

Tony is scrunching his body as much as he can in the next moment.

The serum works through him with the pace of a cheetah. His blood is scorching, licking up flames as it wrecks catastrophe on the rest of him. He’s on fire, the heat melting his insides. The sizzle leaves him with a prickling sensation and he contorts, wanting and craving any type of relief.  

He’s panting, heaving in as much air in and out as he can. He counts his breaths, trying to attempt at keeping his sense of reality at bay. It only lasts for so long.

The door opens, but he is unaware of the world outside his own, caught up in his dilemma.

The same nurse comes back in and the syringe meets his neck again. Tony jumps in alarm, not expecting another dose. It’s the first time this has happened, two doses in one period. It stuffs him with dread.

It’s short and quick just as the other one was.

He feels doomed, his mind will lead to his demise before his body.

Tony lays there for what resembles a few days and it’s a waking hell.

He grapples and clutches onto anything and everything he can. He's pulling at the ends of himself, keeping it all together. But the edges tear and tear and tear. Until he’s only one, single filament.

He concedes in defeat, he relinquishes any power. He bows under the pressure of it all. He can’t take it anymore.

Never before has he done this.

Never before has there been a moment of the strong, invincible man of iron succumbing to the compressing, load of the cosmos.

He’s losing himself and he’s not going to make it.

He gives up.

The door opens a second time and Stein walks in smoothly.

Tony is an utter mess. He’s a wrecked, quivering mess. The words spewing out of his mouth aren’t coherent at all. The other man cooes and picks up Tony gingerly, rocking him and petting him in his arms.

Tony accepts it wholeheartedly without hesitation. It’s not what he wants (or is it?) but it’s what he needs.

Once he settles down, he is given back his senses and roped back onto the cool metal table once more. A slip of a needle into the vein of his right arm and he’s out like a light, a dreamless sleep this time.

He’s greeted warmly the next time Stein drops by.

Tony is suspicious, the hot and cold intentions of Stein are contradicting and it makes him uncomfortable. It makes him feel confused.

An assistant follows and his table is wheeled off. Tony can’t look much aside from what is above him. Walls, walls, walls, the ceiling is his only view. It’s metallic touch leaves him sour. A reminder of his own workshop.

It’s hard not to recognize it when he’s seen countless pictorial documents about it, when he's seen it in real life in Siberia. It’s not something easily forgotten. The chair that forces its victims to surrender, leaving them as empty vessels of who they once were. It’s what snatched Captain America’s comrade away, it’s what robbed Steve Rogers of his best friend.

It doesn’t occur to him immediately that the same will happen to him. It doesn’t hit the air out of him until he is transported from the entrance of the doorway and exchanged onto the menacing furniture.

When he realizes it, he’s strapped down, he’s shouting profanities. He’s throwing threats. The last of his strength pushes out into the open, into this moment. He’s trembling.

“Sweetheart, don’t worry. We’ll take care of you.” Tony verbally scoffs at that.

A plastic mouth guard is inserted and his mouth is then covered by layers of duct tape. He’s still yelling as loud as he can, as much as he can. A metal crown attached to an array of machines is placed onto his head, it’s snug and he wants it off. Tony makes an attempt to throw the most menacing glare at Stein but it’s ineffective.

“Before you know it, you’ll be a brand new man.”

And then he’s screaming for an entirely different reason.

It hurt.

It hurt more than anything he's ever felt.

There’s nothing comparable to the cruciation he’s being put through right now. Every other method of pain inflicted upon him is insignificant in contrast to right now. He feels the beginning of a wipe on the edge of his conscious mind.

He fights it. He doesn’t know how to fight it, doesn’t know what exactly he is fighting but he does.

Rhodey.

Rhodey. Tony reminds himself.

Rhodey, Rhodey, Rhodey. He chants inside his head.

He tries to stay on top of it but it’s difficult.

A tender caress of his face and he flinches. He attempts to turn his face in the opposite directions, tries to shake off any more tries. If he falls into temptation now, he’ll never be able to go back. He’ll be lost forever.

The duct tape doesn’t muffle his shrieks, his jaw is rigid, and his teeth are taut and aching.

He feels his concentration slipping, he’s lost track of his train of thought.

The chair, the crown, the doctor are dismantling him, annihilating every ounce of who he is. He’s bursting at the seams, being demolished at his core.

He tightly grabs and grabs onto the memories he treasures.

The soft endearing smiles of Pepper even though he is a headache. The insufferable jokes and banters that leave Rhodey ranting with no bite. The soothing voice of Jarvis, a comfort to his nights of drunken anger, a reminder of a presence when he feels desolately lonely. His little robot babies coming alive for the first time, silly and goofy in all their glory but they’re loveable nonetheless. The first time he felt like he was part of a team, a family in the afterglow of an alien invasion.

They’re scampering off one by one.

Like drops dripping and rippling off into a bigger mass of water.

A mass of water that’s not his own, that’s not his.

He knows, he can feel, that once they’re gone, they’ll never come back to him.

It leaves him cold and in a frenzy.

Tony has never believed in deities, as he is a science man. But in his grieving, in his bawling, he curses outrageously at them and their existence. He throws every bit of rage and misery he has.

This continues on for hours.

He’s left desolate and crazed when only a few remain.

He weeps and weeps and _weeps_.

The droplets from his eyes descend without fail. The pupils of his eyes dilate. His heart is torn out. The loss knocks the breath out of him, the blow has him pummeling down. He’s overflowing with despair.

He’s numb and forsaken when there are none left.

Another tender touch and it’s all he knows.

* * *

_He’s drifting._

_Alternating between the lines of this galaxy and the next._

_Earth innocently present right behind him. The glow of extraterrestrial ships gleam in front of him, beyond him and his tiny metal suit of armor. He feels so small. He feels the vastness of the universe. It lays on him heavily, the insignificance of his existence, the long stretch of the universe and he is but a speck of cosmic dust blazing through the solar system._

_The oxygen levels inside the suit are lowering and the lights on his HUD monitor are flickering. He's fluttering, in and out of actuality. His eyes are quivering shut, shaking with panic._

_Throat constricting, air thinning._

_The world around him spins and spins. Twisting and swirling into a myriad of colors. Nothing is right side up anymore. Nothing is what is used to be._

_The missile in his grasps is heavy and firm. It weighs the weight of the world and gives him the burden of the extinction of its troubles. But he feels nothing of the sort. He simply feels empty and cold and near non-existent as he floats endlessly in the unimaginable depths of space._

_The bomb underneath him erupts, combusting into pieces. The noise rumbles through the air, crippling all in its path. He’s breaking, he's bursting. He's slipping through the cracks and he can't get back up right._

_He's not right._

_He's never been right._

_The pounds of disappointment, failure, expectations force him under the waves of gravity, extinguishing him from inside and out._

_He slowly blinks the wet of his eyes away, stardust flittering away in response. He peers beyond the wasteland of the interstellar spaceships._

_A glint catches his attention._

_It takes a few more blinks to recognize what exactly Tony is staring at until he recognizes that he’s looking at stars. Stars on stars are laid out, for thousands of miles on end. Twinkling and glittering across the intergalactic skies._

_The scene is quite beautiful and leaves an indescribable feeling in him._

_His focus switches to the rubble and heap of debris in front of him, a graveyard. The sun is brighter than it’s ever been. It’s light reaching past the horizons._

_It scaths him with its effervescent waves. Leaves him scattering into ashes, leaves him decimating into ruins. He’s suspended at the hands of the gods._

_It is the destiny of stars to collapse._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tysm guys for all the love i never thought that so many of you guys would like this (my dad would be proud at how many people talked to me) and i'd like to apologize now for the emotional train wreck that this chapter was but i told you shit was gonna go down and get worse and i love all of you xoxo


	3. in time i know you’ll leave me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “That’s the thing about pain, it demands to be felt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> long time no see everyone!! i am nervous to post but here is 11k of more verbal vomit to make up for my absence ヾ(´▽｀;)ゝ (thank you babies for all the wonderful comments xoxo) please excuse any errors, this is all un-betad and I wanted to post this as soon as I could

His eyes are clenched, face scrunched up, body tight and tense.

The residual pain ebbs away from his body. He uncoils, his muscles slipping into a loose and limber state. Unraveling and unwinding, he falls into a false sense of relaxation.

Sweat slides down his temple but he dismisses it easily as the breezy artificial chill cools him. A whirring dimly registers and a heavy weight is lifted off his head.

Tony feels disoriented and nauseous. His mind leaves him wanting, just blank emptiness and half-thoughts floating around. His lips tingle, as if words linger on them and ache to be heard. A flick of his tongue across his lips, he feels an indent of teeth and rough scabs, the blood only recently clotted.

It takes several minutes before he slowly blinks his eyes open.

He blinks blearily again.

The bright lights sear into his retinas and he hisses, teeth displayed and mouth furled unpleasantly. The pain slithers up his cranium and Tony feels the ugly pulse with each puff of air.

Throughout it all, his chest beats an erratic, disorganized tempo and a full, hefty drag draws him down deeper than he can understand. He feels like he's falling, close to the end but never quite hitting the floor.

He feels wrong. All jumbled up, like pieces that aren’t aligned right, pieces that aren't made to fit correctly.

All wrong, wrong, _wrong._

It pits an unsettling rumble in his abdomen and a desire to rattle around and take off.

An unfamiliar face peeps in front of him

“Hello,” Stein says with a tad of mirth.

A soft graze of the back of Stein’s hands and a swell of urgency clings to Tony. “ _Resist_ ,” it whispers the sins from his past, grazing against his ears and caressing the small baby hairs that curl against them. A shiver runs down Tony's spine.

The doctor peels the duct tape off his mouth and prods inside to obtain the mouth guard there. A bit of drool falls from his mouth and Tony absentmindedly attempts to wipe it, only to realize he's unable to move his arms.

Stein regains his attention once again with a small pat on the cheek before wiping away the saliva with a rumpled handkerchief. Tony moves his gaze up, eyelashes brushing against cheekbones and tilts his head.

The doctor stares with a strong intensity and Tony burns with an indescribable warmth (he’s unable to place what exactly it is, but embarrassment is the closest he gets to). Tony lifts the corners of his lips in a shy, uncomfortable lift. It’s a mixture of nervousness and uncertainty but Stein greedily eats it up all the same.

“Beautiful.”

There’s no response from Tony. But his posture is curved inward, the timidness clear to see. His chest rises and falls in a dragging manner and there’s a slight twitch in his right bicep. He clenches and unclenches his fists, stretching stiff fingers.

The physician pays no mind to the leather binds restraining Tony to the chair and instead lets him continue to take in the space around.

The room is akin to an immensely large metal box, the steel reinforced walls cradling those within. The floor, a dark gray cement filling, is chilling to the balms of his feet. Tony pats the floor with the tips of his toes in slight amazement at the cool temperature of the ground.

Once he’s gotten his fill of the room, the doctor releases him from confinement and Tony looks a little confused when he’s given the freedom to move.

He sends a questioning look to Stein, the man gives him an encouraging smile in return.

His muscles don’t cooperate with him and it takes Tony longer than he’d like to coordinate his movements, the stiffness and ache stifling him a tad. He’s balanced and upright but a step too fast has him tumbling forward.

Stein shoots out an arm around Tony’s shoulder to prevent him from collapsing. The floor feels uneven beneath his feet and it gleams up at him, ready to swallow him entirely at any moment.

“Be careful there,” Stein comments.

Tony accepts the doctor’s help and uses it as leverage to balance himself and paddle around the room. His feet run cold from the temperature of the ground and he crouches down to feel the indents on the floor.

An impressive number of monitors, machines, and cables run along the room, Tony is in awe. The screens are bright, the lights flicker on and off, a twinkle of it reflected in his eyes. His curiosity is peaked by the technology in front of him but he doesn’t dare prod any of the equipment (who knows the consequences are if he were to break anything).

There’s a whirring in the background. A mechanical clank followed by a clatter and a yell. He pivots his body in that direction. It’s not necessarily loud but it is within his hearing range. It’s not necessarily of importance but it clings to him. It buzzes an insistent ringing, and Tony is brought back into a different place.

He feels it. He doesn't quite see it as well at first but the vividness sharpens quickly.

A glaring beam of light blinds everything. The quick swift swing of air as a suit ricochets down, he soars. It's falling faster, it's plummeting, and Tony’s rocketing closer but he’s still so far away. He stretches and pulls and wills himself to fly quicker. The air moves around him, against him, like life itself does not want him to reach what he wants most. He pushes forward his right arm to catch the body.

Only for his fingers to never touch, only for his hands to never grab, only for him to never reach, and his eyes bear the sight of the smashing impact the suit has into the dirt.

He swoops down and cradles the body. Beaten and hurt, the other suit looks the smallest it's ever been, the frailest he's ever been. A glimpse of strong arms around him, a laughter that feels like the summer Malibu sun, a face that shows what unconditional love really means. Tony holds him gently, holds back the tears, but doesn't hold backs the cry that tears itself out.

The faceplate lift and it all comes back to him.

“Rhodey!” He _screams_ and _screams_ and _screams_. It wretches out of his throat, scratching the innards, a rough pull of knives against the soft tissue. It feels so real. He can’t dissociate between the return of a memory and the present reality. He takes short labored breaths in between his yelling.

Rinse and repeat, the shrieks come out disjointed and jumbled. The words don’t quite settle right. It’s an unsettling combination of lucid pain and incoherent anger. Sometimes the name doesn't fully form before it spills from his mouth again.

Hands find their way into his hair tight and his back hunches, chest over his knees. His throat is sore from overuse and his mind races and turns around in circles at maximum velocity. The broken motor in the left side of his chest is beyond help.

The engines sputters but nothing in him is working correctly. He's collapsing inside all over.

He’s losing Rhodey again.

And for the second time, his loss eats him and he laments the hole in his heart.  

“Rhodey,” he breathes, the air beaten out of him.

His heart sputters, each beat feeling like it’s the last. His chest cavity sours with how he was unable to reach Rhodey in time, how he couldn’t save Rhodey from the nasty future that was bestowed upon him. He's shaking in his skin, goosebumps raise the hairs on his forearms.

Tony is shoved back into the chair, helpless and unable to fend for himself. He’s trapped in a plane of existence that isn't his own. The leather straps are tightened harshly around his limbs, the mouth guard shoved in, and duct tape slapped on without a care for his well-being.

A metal crown is placed on his temples and it presses down on his face harshly, the skin bruising quickly underneath but he’s numb to it.

“Let’s begin again.”

Tony is relentless. _Rhodey_ , it comes, volume as loud as his vocal passage allows. Rage fills him. Despair fuels him. Sadness breaks him. The glistening of his eyes is a tale sign of his shattered humanity. His stomach tightens and his muscles flex at every scream. And this goes on and on. The noises are echoing off the walls and _Rhodey_ , the name flashes and burns into him like a dying sun.

His vision blurs but he sees vague figures and shifting colors. A hollowness carves its way down and takes all in its path to destruction. It hurts, it hurts so much. He can’t feel his fingers, can’t feel his toes. The only feeling left is scavenging whatever is left inside of him, only to find out he's hollowed out.

“Rhodey,” he chokes, muffled by the duct and mouth guard.

Tony holds on, he holds as tight as he can.

He’s desperate, he’s searching for someone he can longer feel, can no longer see. He longs for sarcastic batter, longs for the casual touches, longs for the greasy hamburgers and beer bottles clinking.

“Please,” Tony pleads inwardly, “Please, don’t take this away from me. Stop, _please_.”

“Rhodes,” he begs, “ Stay.”

His eyes sting, the funeral bells make themselves heard.

“Stay, please.”

His throat aches from all the screaming, but it doesn’t ache as much as the chasm in his chest.

“Don’t go.”

But like all else, it leaves him. The silence comes quickly after, any semblance of noise gone. Tony is slumped back into the chair, his heads rolls from the side to straight down.

A sliver of a tear falls from his eye.

Stein walks forward to inspect his captive. He uses his thumb and index finger to force open Tony’s eyes one at a time and inspects them with a pen light. Stein nods to himself and the staff once he’s satisfied with what he’s seeing.

Stein taps his lips with his index finger. His face is scrunched up in contemplation. He decides to plan his next moves in this interlude. He doesn’t fret, all will come in its own way.

* * *

_He walks and walks, the sun beyond the horizon gleaming straight into his eyes._

_The intensity of the light burn and a migraine grows from the cusp of his neck and expands throughout the edges of his head._

_Parched, he licks his lips only for them to become cracked and dry again a few seconds later. Dirt crusted face, sun worn skin, he walks and walks and walks on the ever growing dunes of the desert._

_The sand beneath him is hot and swelters his bare toes._

_The makeshift hood does nothing to protect him from the onslaught of heat._

_But he walks._

_His ashy garments weigh down on him, bricks tethered to his skin. He continues to keep going._

_There is no end to the sand dunes and the heat waves reach beyond what he can see._

_He can still hear Yinsen’s brave cry, he can still feel the reverberations from the bomb explosions and gunfire._

_The scabs and sores along his arms peel fresh again, irritated and infected by the sweat rolling off and the sand sticking to his skin. Fresh fallen from the sky, he’s still pained from the landing, muscles and joints locked together or not placed properly._

_But he walks._

_The anchor that tethers him to this world held together by a string of words._

_Soon, the sky begins to fall and Tony stops to look up._

_The constellations continue to shine._

_The stars are burdened with loneliness and Tony is buried beneath it all. They scream, “Save me!”_

_But prayers aren’t heard, the Gods are dead, and he’s left to fend for himself._

_The arc reactor shines brightly against his chest, unseen to the world but very much real to him. His broken laughter echoes and reaches beyond him._

_What a lonely way to die._

* * *

 The light is glaringly bright when Tony opens his eyes again. He shuts them close immediately to block out the impending headache he feels. He scrunches up at the residue of bleeding light he sees behind his eyelids.

He feels the taste of anguish on his tongue, the aftermath of a lost grievance.

There are a million questions with no answers running through his mind, an endless marathon of exhaustion.

The world is spinning, quickly without waiting for him. He’s shifting his vision from one corner of the room to the next, never staying long in one place. The thrum of his heartbeat is a small comfort to his ever increasing panic.

“Hello, Anthony. We’re here to help you.”

Tony jumps in his confined position. _“Run_ ,” it warns him, the urgency running through the tendrils of his ruffled strands and into his ear. It worms its way into him and settles inside him, making itself at home.

He croaks out a noise, pushing past his dry and scratchy throat and ignoring the acrid taste that the name has left in him.

“We’re going to make you better. You don’t have to worry about anything anymore.”

“Help...me?”

“Yes.” Stein looks at Tony, eyes gentle and calm.

Stein slowly unravels the bindings, taking his time with care. The skin underneath is bruised and swollen, Tony absentmindedly rubs his wrists and winces from the stinging pain.

“Will you let us help you, Anthony?” Stein extends his hand to Tony.

Tony looks up at the hand and feels unsure. He looks at the hand once more and he shudders as the space around him twists into a life he doesn’t live anymore.

_“Won’t you let me help you Tony?”_

Heavy hands are placed onto his shoulders as a gesture of comfort. Foolish, naive Tony does not see through the act, he just lightly nods his head, afraid that if he spoke the weight of what happened would spill over.

He’s spun in a flurry of motions, a lapse of heavy drinking and relentless parties. The mind numbing sensation of drugs coursing through him and a deep bellowing hollowness fills his belly. Sex keeps his body warm and loose, but it's a fleeting feeling he chases. A restless energy devours him and he allows it to keep him.

The face changes, older and more sinister.

Lines grow across the span of it and the hair disappears, the bald reflection shines from the lights above.

The eyes crinkles, an unpleasant and untrustworthy glow stares right back at him.

He’s paralyzed, his limbs aren’t listening to him and stay stuck to the sides of his body.

The fingers grow thicker and the voice deepens an octave.

_“Oh how foolish you are, Tony boy.”_

His blood runs fast and cold as the fingers touch his reactor and twist it out of his chest unapologetically. The color of his face blues and all the air in his body leaves him and never comes back.

He lays still as the man he thought of as a mentor, as a fatherly figure holds his metal heart, taking the small leftovers of his innocence.

He is frozen.

The hand is going inside his chest, where the cavern of his heart is. He's trying to yell but barely a whisper comes out. A chill runs down his spine, the urge to run grows. The wires are the last connection he has to his life line.

 _I’m going to die_ , he thinks deliriously.

Stane smiles sweetly, looking at Tony the whole time and enjoying the broken, betrayed look he receives back.

That was the last time Tony ever let anyone see that face. (Until a deeper betrayal was committed in a land of snow and frozen, broken hearts)

Stane continues to go deeper in his chest cavity, unapologetically twisting and turning his hand as he goes until he reaches Tony’s actual heart. Tony chokes out a panicked breath from his nose.

Desperately, he wills his body to move but even his mouth refuses to open.

Tony can keep the heavy thrum resonating throughout his body. It quickens as Stane tightens his fist around his bleeding organ and uses his other hand to tip Tony’s head to his face.

Their eyes meet.

Tony feels himself crumbling. He stares straight ahead at Stane, unbelieving of it all.

“I’ve never loved you.”

And then he rips Tony’s heart right out of his chest.

Outside of his haze, Tony is wildly stumbling away.

Steins retreats from the flailing appendages and calls out the guards to detain Tony back into the seat. He patiently watches from the background and smiles to himself.

Tony punches and kicks without seeing, avoiding any touch to his body. A hand grips his shoulder and he snarls before letting his fist run and crack the face of the man holding him. Tactics are changed once security realizes the danger that he presents.

Stealthily, they use Tony’s hallucination to their advantage and herd him into a corner of the room. Tony scrambles and releases airy grunts, eyes unfocused and crazed.

He twists and turns away from their advances, holding his hands closely to his chest.

His efforts are futile and his wrists burn from the harsh, merciless wraps of his binds that they rope him into. Once tied up, the transition to the seat is almost too easy. This time there is no mouthguard, no tape to keep him silent.

Stein hums that same tune to himself when the bellows of the trapped man start.

* * *

 “Friday, keep up the good work. We’ll continue running schematics on every single source out there. I won't stop until I find him.”

“I would do it without prompting.” Friday is crisp in response, the hum of her work in the background. Rhodey nods in agreement.

“We’ll bring him home,” the AI says firmly and Rhodey exhales. He knows that she'll work with intense fervor, scavenging the ends of the earth until she can find her boss.

It's all she knows. It's all she's concerned with, the main purpose of her existence is to care for Anthony Edward Stark. Without her purpose, she lacks meaning. She continues to run her scans with no rest and only one goal in sight.

Left behind, she had processed possibilities of survival. She calculates the chances of every scenario that could happen to Tony. She waits and waits, the silence of the tower answers her.

She may be a sentient artificial entity, but if emotions could transcend into her plane of functioning, it could be described as longing and sadness, a deep pang unexplained by any string of codes.

Rhodey continues to remain in the tower, refusing to leave it until he has some sort of clue as to where his best friend is. Plus, Friday is as good as any resource out there right now to finding Tony.

He needs the companionship as much as Friday does.

His cellphone rings and he fishes for it in his front pocket, before checking the caller ID.

“Rhodey, do you have any idea where Tony is?”

Pepper finally calls him, her patience a little thin. That is until she finds out the truth, that their mutual best friend is missing, has been missing now and she feels like a bomb has been dropped on her.

“I-I, Rhodey,” it comes out with a struggle. She’s not sure what she’s feeling right now.

“Pepper, I know you needed some time apart. Away from all the superhero business and the dangers it brings (to you and to Tony, he leaves that unsaid).”

“Rhodey, no, listen. I...Tony and I..we’re not together anymore.”

“What?”

“Tony never told you…?” It comes out soft.

“No, he didn’t.” His words come out just as soft, they both know the kind of man Tony can be, disregarding his troubles for the sake of others. He hurts himself, knowing inside that he’ll never be worth more. He sacrifices himself for the greater good because he wants everything to be better for others.

“We..I couldn’t handle it anymore Rhodey. I couldn’t be the one they brought the news to, the body to if he never made it back alive. It was for my own sanity, I broke up with him.” She takes a deep breath before continuing.

“But it wasn’t like I wanted to walk out of his personal life entirely. I still wanted to be there for him..I just needed some distance. I need to be okay Rhodey.”

Rhodey closes his eyes shut before inhaling and exhaling a frustrating breath. Rhodey is a little conflicted between reprimanding her and reassuring her.

“That selfless stupid son of a gun,” are the words he manages to mutter.

“Excuse me?”

“Tony. He never thinks for himself and runs straight into things for other people without any regard for himself. This is such a mess.”

“I do agree with you but I’m not quite catching what it has to do with the situation right now.”

“The Avengers split, over the Accords and over their own agendas. Tony busted his ass to be the voice of reason. There’s a lot I’m still figuring out but he and Steve fought. Barnes was there too. Tony-” He struggles with these next words, as it awakens his slumbering temper.

“After the fight, Tony was left behind in Siberia, Pepper,” he finishes.

“Shit.” He starts to hear some sniffles on the other side of the telephone and honestly, if he wasn’t trying to be the stronger one, he would’ve been the same.

“Barnes..he..while he was the Winter Soldier, he murdered Tony’s parents.” Rhodey takes another inhale before continuing.

“He found out in Siberia.”

Pepper muffles herself over the phone and gives herself a few seconds. She struggles with a breath and takes another second to compose herself again.

“I didn't know. I didn’t know anything and I should’ve been there Rhodey. I should’ve been there for him. You know how he is, all arrogant, jokes, and confidence, but deep down he’s the loneliest man in the world.”

“We..all could’ve been there more for him.” It sticks with him, a heavy boulder lays on his stomach. Pepper muffles more sobs on the other line.

“Rhodey, please. Please find him,” she musters out.

“That’s not even a question. We’re going to find him, we’re going to hug and yell the shit out of him and he’ll never leave our sights again. We’re going to do better for him next time.”

“Agreed for all of the above. I’ll take care of everything on my end.”

“That’s more than we can ask for right now.”

“If you need anything, if you find out anything, you let me know.”

“I will.”

He ends the call, a sigh on the edge of his lips. It seems to be the only thing he’s consistently been able to do these days.

“Colonel, a package from the postal office has arrived for boss. The mail carrier will be here with an estimated time of arrival at 3:13 PM.”

Rhodey is on his feet before she finishes her sentence. He can’t deny that he’s suspicious. This can either be a hint or a ploy but he takes the risk anyways.

It takes him some time before he can get to the floor to pick up the cardboard boxed package. He signs the clipboard, disregarding the mailman in his hurry and says a curt thank you (he still has his manners, his momma would’ve smacked him) as he moves away from the door.

It’s small and light in his arms, his curiosity itches to know what the contents are.

Rhodey takes it up with him, back on the penthouse floor before grabbing a pair of scissors from the kitchen drawer to cut through the tape and open it up. The contents of it surprise him.

An outdated flip phone and an envelope with a messy scrawl of Tony’s name on it.

Rhodey throws away the sentiment of privacy at the expense of any possible whereabouts of his friend and uses his finger to open the letter.

His eyes move across the lines of words.

Once he's done, it takes every ounce of his energy to not burn the letter and throw the cellphone against the wall.

Rhodey is seething and anger boils in the burrows of his abdomen, crawling upwards until he's a speck away from erupting, hot lava and bursting ashes all over the place.

Hell hath no fury like a man who seeks vengeance.

* * *

  _It’s quite beautiful._

_The intricate way that the arachne weaves its spindle, beginning at one innocuous corner and expanding outward, spinning and spinning and spinning until what was once a small twine becomes a net of enduring famine._

_Tony is mesmerized, entranced by the performance in front of him. He’s terrified but doesn’t move a muscle, paralyzed by the hymn of the web with its strings plucked with delicate deadly accuracy._

_A dance, an alluring scheme that draws its prey close ._

_He walks forward unconsciously to take a closer look, playing his part of the waltz. Poor, poor Tony, deceived by her lies and corporate companionship._

_The spider waits and waits, her steadiness knows no bounds. She takes her time, fibers strong and sturdy, the ultimate trap._

_She lays quietly and plots revenge, her patience a consummate force._

_The widow sings a seducing song, drawing all in its vicinity. A tempting promise of friendship, affection, and loyalty. Tony doesn't realize what he’s done until he’s melded together with it._

_It’s sweet at first, the honey of desires covering him in its sticky, viscous syrup._

_When he comes to his senses, it’s already too late. But nonetheless he struggles desperately, a tango of both resignation and tenacity. He thrashes and kicks around, futile in his efforts._

_The spider looms close, the hissing glare of its eyes clear in view. She throws a vicious beat, dissonant notes vibrating in the air. The sweet promises that he so dearly choice to believe in were so naive._

_“I’m not the one who needs to watch their back,” the widow whispers in his right ear._

_A graze of pincers and venom sinks in._

_Tony never stood a chance._

_He is devoured whole._

* * *

There are some nights where Steve is allowed sleep because the serum cannot keep up with never resting. The sleep debt grows and continues to eat until his body can’t keep up and he has to lie down for a few hours.

Most nights he doesn’t.

His back tense against the soft mattress and his fingers tingle, a sensation that both frustrates and frightens him.

He feels himself over Tony, prepared to make the final blow. The shield is hefty and thick in his hands. Adrenaline and desperation hazing his rationality, he wants to save Bucky.

There’s a yawning ache opening wide in him. He was prepared to kill his friend to make sure that happened.

Friend, he misters out miserably.

What a friend he was to Tony.

The guilt gnaws at him, reminds him of its presence whenever he allows himself the pleasure of peace.

The rush of relief ends quickly once Bucky has found himself in better condition and safety. Steve doesn't feel the satisfaction anymore. Not when he left behind Tony, so he writes him a letter and places a cellphone with it.

It appeases for about five minutes after he has sent it. Then the he wonders all the possibilities of how his package will be interpreted. He worries if he should have even sent it. He begins to doubt whether he'll ever be friends with Tony again.

It'll be alright, he says to himself.

His hands, should be steady, but yet, shake with a cup of coffee in his hands and stares into the dawn of another day.

He greets Sam courteously, stiffer than he ever has. Sam returns the gesture more sincerely and raises an eyebrow at his behavior.

“You alright, Cap?”

“Peachy keen.”

Sam doesn’t push and Steve doesn’t want him to.

The impending dread of a new morning, 24 hours of surviving through endless nervous thoughts. Steve is just a bundle of over stimulated nerves as he watches the news in his spare time (which aside from working out and sparring and meals, is a lot).

The rest of the crew slinks in and out, but he stays to watch the sun drift and wake up the rest of the world. He wonders if Tony is awake now or if he’s down in his lab, coffee as his diet.

It’ll be alright, he says to himself.

Steve is the apex of scientific human perfection. The serum provided him the strength and body ratio that most men would envy.

He’s fit to fight.

He’s made to win.

He wonders if it was really worth it all.

He thinks over and over to himself if the decisions he made were the best ones. He solidifies his choices mentally to himself.

But when he thinks about Tony and Tony’s eyes of betrayal and deep rooted sadness, he doesn’t feel gifted in the body that was given to him.

Steve feels like the biggest bully of them all.

It’ll be alright, he says to himself.

The political climate of America is a fickle nature.

Steve watches the news. His head is swimming, not unlike the dizzy spells he had as a child, sick and tied to his bed.

The president pardons their rogue status and allows re-entry back into the States. Steve finds it a disturbingly odd decision to make and continues to let the question run.

The answer comes to him when Natasha walks in, casually as she always does. The sun is at its highest point in the day.

She places a newspaper on the kitchen island table and grabs a cup of coffee for herself all in the same breath.

Natasha nurses a sip for herself before closing her eyes for a short moment (but longer than she normally does).

“Stark, he's missing.”

Steve has to hold in the nausea and he wills himself not to run into the restroom to release his breakfast.

Once he's alone, he goes straight into his bathroom and holds himself in front of his toilet. His food coming out too easily with all the anxiety and guilt and shock.

Steve places his head on the cold stone of the seat and feels another wave of sickness coming.

It'll be alright, he says to himself when he throws up again.

Steve holds the edges of the sink.

He stares and feels nothing like himself. His skin is still dewy and fresh, there are no bags underneath his eyes, and he barely managed to shave the stubble.

But his eyes tell a different story, his body feels heavier and he is ready to slump over and never get out of bed, the energy is sapped out of him when he wakes up. He doesn’t want to face the world, which has faded out into a bleak gray.

This is not Captain America.

This is not Steve Rogers.

There’s no name for who he is right now.

It sure isn’t who he wants to be.

But he still tells himself it’ll be alright.

* * *

  _“Tony, aren’t you a little old to be scared of the Boogeyman?” His mother muses._

_“It’s not the Boogeyman I’m scared of, mamma.” He scrunches up his face in response. It almost sounds a little petulant, but he’s mostly overwhelmed with fear._

_“Can you be with me?” He shuffles around a little in his bed and manages to muster up a pleading pair of brown eyes up at his mother._

_“You shouldn’t be frightened of anything. I’m right here, bambino.” She places a light kiss on the center of his forehead and gently tucks a curly lock behind his ears. With that done, she walks away and flips the switch to off the lights. Without another word, she leaves the room._

_The smell of her perfume lingers, a expensive floral scent that tickles his nose._

_“Don’t go.” Tony whispers to himself._

_He slides under his covers and curls in on himself. He quietly talks about mathematics, talks about physics, talks to put away the crawling fear that creeps into his tiny chest. He chatters to himself to stop the rush of blood in his ears and the pulse of a heartbeat far too fast._

_Tony jumps when he hears rustling in his room. Tightly, he grasps the blanket above him and curls further, attempting to try and solve the equation he thought of earlier. The rhythm of the work calms him, the soothing certainty and factual balance of science is a buffet to his hunger for knowledge._

_That is, until another rustle. This time, the movement was louder, resonating through the expensive, reinforced walls of his room. He shuffles around uncomfortably, a churning deep in his belly and cold sweat chilling his warm skin._

_He tightens into a ball and counts the bruises underneath his pajamas, lightly tapping each one. He recounts how each of them found their way onto his olive skin._

_His wrist was when he walked into his father’s workshop with Jarvis fretting at his heels. He excitedly stumbles in with his first circuit, babbling quickly even before stepping into the room. He exudes pride and joy._

_Howard rushes forth with anger when Tony tugs on his dress pants with his small, smooth hands._

_The circuit board was never seen, left in shambles on the floor._

_Tony leaves with an angry swell on his wrist and dewy, wet eyes._

_His forearm was when Tony walks into the common room, back for break from his boarding school academy. Howard is sitting in a lush, cushioned chair. Grand, tall, and looming, it was befitting of his father._

_Howard swirls a glass of bourbon._

_Tony swore he saw red in his father’s eyes._

_His cheek was when the breath of astringent alcohol wafts into Tony’s nose as he takes in another drunken rant. He doesn’t flinch when spit flies onto his face. He knows that silence and compliance are the easiest method. Tony learned his lesson when his bout of defiance got him a broken nose and fractured arm._

_The time he doesn’t bother to cry when Howard’s fist hits his face._

_A crash startles him from his thoughts and he peeks his head up from his bed sheets with some courage._

_“You’re such a disappointment.”_

_Tony never knew if Howard talked about Tony or himself that day._

_But he’ll never ever forget the look of his father staring at him, the gaze of an angry, broken man._

* * *

 Bucky isn’t seen much, he often takes refuge outside, wandering to find a sense of comfort. He’s still shaky, a smidge closer to being okay then he was yesterday. But a resolution has settled in and no longer is he concerned with fleeing from his troubles.

Unknown to the rest, Bucky has requested therapy from T’challa, who was more than happy to provide him the care that he needed. Sessions are long and energy-draining. Bucky isn’t used to conversing and the therapist encourages him to speak (because vocalizing it makes it all the more real).

The sessions are drawn out in silence with short-terse words in between. Bucky had to deal with the idea of help and someone helping him (and helping himself).

It’s slow at first, Bucky talks about small shallow details, how he likes the cool grass underneath his fingers and hates dirt under his nails but will deal with it regardless. It’s about places and objects that he can recount from the present and nothing from his past. They're facts that he knows without a doubt.

“To reiterate, we can talk about whatever you’d like Mr. Barnes. This is for you and you can work at your own pace.”

His words come out strangled and spaced, it’s distressing and excruciating during the first time around because it’s more silence than words that spew from his lips. It’s always been louder in his head. He works slowly from silent to short, stunted phrases.

But today he wants it more than anything and pushes himself forward.

“I can’t forgive myself.”

The therapist gently coaxes him into expanding his thoughts. Bucky lets out a frustrating grunt before licking his lips and trying to make verbal representations of his feelings and thoughts.

“I..remember all of them.”

He fumbles with the next sentence. It takes more than a few tries to get it right.

“Every single one of ‘em that died because of _me_.” He braces himself for the next part. His therapist gives an encouraging noise.

“I know I wasn’t in control of my mind, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was me. It was me that took them and it’s me that can never give them back.” Bucky stares at his only hand, and rotates it around.

“And those damn words are still in my head. It scares me.”

He remembers slipping, falling, and fading away as Zemo says them. He tries hard and tries to fight before he succumbs to what he never wanted to be.

“I don't think I'm deserving of this chance at another life.”

His fists curl tightly. He remembers falling from the train, unknowingly of what would await him on the other side, only to find out that he would be stripped away of himself and built into a killing machine. Only to find himself a broken man.

“Not when none of them got to.”

He recites the names of his targets every night as a way to repent. Unwilling to remove the sense of guilt lodged straight in his heart, he speaks the focus of his nightmares and agony.

“Every since I woke up, these hands...all they’ve done is hurt people.”

Bucky opens his hand and rests it on his knee. He stares at his palm blankly, emotionally worn.

“And I think about the future I’ve taken away from so many of them and the ones that were left behind and abandoned,” he sees Tony’s face, honey eyes glistening and lips wobbling, the bruises prominent around sunken cheeks and pale skin.

He thinks of a younger Tony, left by himself.

“I don't want to do that anymore but I'm scared...” Bucky takes a deep breath and lets the question that has been festering out into the open.

“How can I trust myself...when I don't even know who I am anymore?”

The therapist gently replies, and it sticks with him.

“All those things, it happened. You didn’t have a choice in any of that. Those facts can’t change. But Mr. Barnes. you get to decide what happens from this point on. You get to decide who you want to be.”

* * *

  _The smell of rotting, dead flesh never fails to empty his stomach content. The sour leftover bile in his mouth leaves him heaving empty air and a clenched, sore stomach on all fours._

_“Oh Tony”, Ultron croons, gripping Tony by his hair. Tony doesn’t respond, he just tries to focus on breathing (that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, doesn’t mean he can’t feel the pain)._

_“Look at you. You poor thing,” the robot says with fake sympathy. It slides over Tony like slime, wrapping him in a thick, viscous bubble._

_“Give in,” Ultron hisses._

_“No.” Tony stares back defiantly, the glint in his eyes a tale-sign of his will._

_“Give in,” he repeats, a sharp tug._

_“No.” Tony stares at his hands and the dark, thick red that covers him._

_Ultron leers at him, eyes alight in the dark expanse of the universe around them._

_“Look at them.”_

_Tony is standing all alone, all alone, all alone. Piles and heaps of bodies around him, there’s no end. He can hear the ghoulish screeches and their bloody thirst for vengeance. It’s palpable and Tony feels the hatred and the disgust directed at him._

_(It’ll never beat the absolute disdain he has of himself)_

_“All these people you couldn’t save.”_

_It’s maddening, Tony thinks. He works day and night, he works until his vision blurs and his hands shakes. He works until he’s covered in scars, black and blue, and he still can’t do what he wants the most._

_“The world doesn't need you.”_

_Tony feels himself floating, space holds him weightlessly. The portal is warm against the back of his armor, Earth not too far away (but also terribly distant, he wonders if he’ll ever get to go back home)._

_Distantly, he feels the tension of a millions eyes on him, judgment thick in the air._

_“The world doesn't want you.”_

_It closes behind him he'll never gets to taste the warm, salty Malibu air or hear the chirps of his clumsy, baby bots._

_He just exists in this stellar realm now, silenced by the looming threat that will come for them._

_Ultron drifts and clings to his useless iron clad body. He holds Tony, almost like he loves the genius._

_Ultron’s broken head touches Tony’s forehead, a touch so gentle that it makes Tony that much lonelier. The red eye is there, always there. It stares at him, blazing like the sun behind the sentient entity._

_“You can’t be saved, Tony Stark.”_

_In the cold, vastness of space, all alone on his own and prepared to lay in his bed of nails, Tony starts to believe him._

_He falls like dying star._

* * *

 

“Rhodey...I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Apologies won't bring him back.” It comes out with much more heat than he intended but Rhodey doesn’t give a shit.

“I know, but I want to say it anyways.” Rhodey scoffs and shakes his head.

“We all know that’s bullshit. You were just selfishly working on your own agenda! Your apologies mean absolutely squat to me, to Tony. Your fucking _sorry_ left my best friend thrown into the eye of a hurricane and spit out in shreds,” Rhodey struggles to keep any semblance of composure.

“I’m not sorry for what I chose to do because it’s what I believe in. The Accords aren’t right. Bucky needed me. But I didn’t mean for that to happen to Tony. I didn’t mean to do that to Tony.” It ends weakly.

“Are you even listening to yourself right now, Rogers? You damn well meant it.” Rhodey looks at him in disbelief.

“I was trying to protect him Rhodes!” Steve frustratedly shouts.

“The only one he needed to be protected from was _you_!” Rhodey shouts back. Steve recoils from the lingual lash.

“It wasn’t your place to decide what’s good for him and what’s isn’t. You don’t get to do that.”

“None of us do.” Rhodey says firmly.

“I didn’t want him to have to deal with that.”

“Who the fuck was keeping the well being of Tony in mind? Did you even try to look at it from his perspective?” Steve stays silent, which spoke enough volume for Rhodey.

“Just leave. I regret even talking to you. You don’t care. You obviously never did.” Steve opens his mouth to retaliate but Rhodey continues on and leaves him no room to speak.

“I thought I could trust you. I thought I could trust that you would be one of the few who deserved Tony, who would treat him right.”

His dark earthy brown eyes meet the ocean blue of Steve’s.

“You know, he would talk about you and the rest of the Avengers. ‘Said you guys were the next closest thing to a family thing he ever had.” Rhodey stifles the tears and releases out a trembling noise that resembles a really really sorry version of a laugh.

“I’m such a fool.”

Rhodey covers his face with his well worn hands and reminiscences a much younger, more vulnerable Tony.

The Tony who wore his heart on his sleeve and offered it to those who showed any penchant of affection for him until he couldn’t anymore. The Tony who curled up in his bed, bruises under his sweater and more unsaid ones in his heart. The Tony who Rhodey held while he cried and mourned, broken in half by what life keeps taking from him. The Tony who shyly smiled before excitedly introducing his prized DUM-E to Rhodey.

“Because I was wrong.”

Rhodey tilts his head upwards and looks straight at Steve with his red-rimmed eyes. The colonel looks every bit worn and distraught. The long years apparent and the bone tiredness clear in his deep brown irises.

The captain doesn’t dare breathe when the next words come.

“And that made all the difference. That mistake cost me Tony.”

* * *

_He doesn’t know if he’ll ever make it out of here. The constant beat of vibranium drones, a sound that echoes for miles and disappears into the biting, cold air._

_He’s here again, for the upteenth time._

_Laying on the floor, already dead in more ways than one._

_Steve spits out words, angry lines written around his face. It’s a muffled blur to Tony’s ears._

_“Steve, please. Please no more.” Raspy, he's thirsty for a strip of absolute nothing. Anything to work out the breaking._

_“I’m tired.” He says as he does every night._

_His suit sparks from the next impact, Tony does nothing to protect himself the tiny embers._

_“I’m so tired, Steve. I don’t want to keep fighting.”_

_Tony stares at the silhouette of Barnes who stands behind Steve._

_“I just want this all to stop.”_

_In the next hit, Tony presses the heel of his hands into his eyes._

_“Why.” Tony hiccups wetly._

_“Why couldn't you just tell me the truth?”_

_“Why did you lie to me?”_

_This time, Steve pauses._

_“Because I couldn’t trust what you’d do if you knew.”_

_The clarity returns and Tony hears every annunciated syllable._

_Tony feels a part of him die. The same part of him that died when Obie happily stole the arc reactor out of his chest. The same part of him that died when Sunset Bain manipulated him for her own gains. The same part of him that died when Ty broke his trust and crushed it with his hands._

_The shield comes down._

_The last of his heart withers and breaks._

_Because betrayal tastes the most bitter when it comes from a place you loved._

* * *

“Who are you?”

It feels like the only tangible things are falling through his fingers.

Teeth grit, he aims for composure and remains silent.

The wool covering is ripped off his head and his head is shoved. The rush of water is sudden, he’s grasping for air. Limbs flailing, a flush of dread swells inside him. He blearily stares into the pitch of darkness that awaits him at the bottom of the barrel.

Time is not on his side.

Tony chokes when his lungs burst with fluid.

He stops abruptly and it’s sugary bliss. It’s quiet, there are no disturbances. The thrum of his heartbeat is absent and the pounding has ceased.

But it’s all over again in the next second.

An agonizing overwhelming heaviness sways through him, he screams and swallows hefty amounts of water.

He’s forcefully drawn out. His hair is clutched in a tight grip. His scalp grows sore and he forcefully expels all the water out, trails running down his neck and face. He’s dropped, smacking his head and sputtering out the rest of the water.

“Who are you?”

Instead of silence, this time he laughs. He rehearses bits and pieces of names to himself, clutching those important to him by memory. He races after them like he's competing in a marathon.

He closes his eyes and tries to remember what happiness looks like.

Hands abruptly grab his hair and pull upward, he lays limp, helpless to their bidding. His hands are tied at his lower back, the cuffs are tight enough to cause him discomfort.

Tony hovers over the water and tries to remember what a smile feels like.

“Rhodey,” Tony rasps.

A glimpse of dark, warm skin.

Then he plunges down.

“Jarvis,” he croaks the next time.

Bright, blue lights comforting him in its glow.

He goes down.

“DUM-E,” he tries to say.

Clumsy and fumbling, but endearing and caring for his well-being.

He goes down.

“U,” he barely gets out.

Silly and child-like, he's never been disappointed in the laughter that bubbles on his chest.

He goes down.

“Butterfin-” he doesn’t even finish this time.

It goes on until Tony physically can’t repeat any of them.

“Silly, this will all be easier when you give in. But don't worry, we'll take care of you until then.”

Stein affectionately rubs Tony’s cheek with the palm of his hand.

Tony doesn’t respond but moves sluggishly out of his grasp. Stein clicks his tongue at the blatant disregard but smiles nonetheless.

Tony is helpless in their hands, pliable to their plots. The fight has started to leave him more and he is losing the battle.

Stein grabs his hands, rolling each finger between his own until he snaps one back.

Tony grits his teeth together but doesn’t give Stein the pleasure of his screams (but also this isn’t the worst of it).

Stein continues from one finger to the next, each time it takes Tony more and more energy not to relent to crying. His eyes water and it finally release the dam when Stein brings his feet up and steps on all the broken appendages.

When those don’t get a cry from him, Stein moves onto his toes. When those don’t work, Stein moves onto pulling the fingernails off each one. When those don’t get what the doctor wants, Stein moves onto his arms and legs.

Tony lays broken, spirit still flickering.

The doctor is still smiling.

Stein purposefully wraps each break with his hands, sure and with care. Tony can’t deal with these touches of affections (especially when all he’s waiting for are painful ones), he’d rather go back to the stabbing and beating.

Tony goes back to the water.

This time after they pull him out, the collar electrocutes him.

He cries bloody murder after the fifth drag.

Tony is placed in the chair.

He doesn’t fight it.

Instead he whispers to himself names that don’t make sense and tries to grasp some image for each one.

But like sand, they slip away fast and mercilessly. They do not bid him any thought.

He’s left with nothing but small, insignificant rubble.

Once he’s conscious, Tony flexes and contorts through the serum mending. He feels the water in his lungs, the swell in his throat, the sting of his nose and eyes. He’s tied to a surgical bed, strapped so tight that any sort of movement isn’t possible.

Tony darts his eyes around the room but finds that it becomes a blur too quickly. He's claustrophobic and there’s not enough space or air in the room. It seems like the walls of the room are caving in on him and

He feels heavy and feverish.

The temperature of his body is beyond hot and he’s sweltering. _Drip drip_ , the sweat travels south and the hot spell continues to scorch without an ounce of merciful grace.

His skin is flushing red and his crackling bones cackle through all his misfortune.

Thunder booms in his ears while lightning strikes his flesh.

The heat rushes through him and he can barely muster a weak cry.

“Sweetheart, I know it's unpleasant but you'll make it.”

Stein wipes away the sweat with a cold, dry towel and makes no effort to provide him any other relief.

“You know, you've made such beautiful progress.”

Tony doesn’t feel alright at all.

Time is a paradox in the hell he’s in. There is no day or night but rather an never ending twilight that he finds himself in.

He grits his teeth through the next painful zing that shoot down his spine, he arches off the bed in reflex.

Stein stares into Tony’s bleary eyes and hums that same old tune again. The doctor soothingly runs his hands through the other man’s short hair, scratching lightly at the scalp at random intervals. Tony doesn't hear the next words but the melody keeps playing in his head.

There are no breaks now, his memory lapses from one event to another. Sometimes he's not even aware of the things that have happened.

A blink, he's screaming and thrashing. He’s grabbing onto cropped memories and forgotten names and indiscernible feelings. He's trying to keep who he is. He's yelling and biting. But he's losing and fading.

A blink, he finds himself in solitary confinement.

He's back in the tiny room, with all of his senses stripped away from him. Tony can see nothing, can hear nothing, can touch nothing, can smell nothing.

He is a ghost on bided time.

A soft graze of rough callused fingers traces the expansive flesh work of his shoulders before settling around him. Unyielding and firm, the blood from the appendages simmer Tony’s skin underneath their touch. A face is tucked in his neck and Tony can feel a smile sneaked in there.

It’s pleasant and it fills his belly, the scent of family, comfort, and love in his lungs. It makes itself at home and Tony has never felt more content in his life.

Tony brings his arms up and hovers the other, skin close to touching.

Tony breathes unsteadily.

There is nothing.

Nothing but darkness.

His eyes swell with moisture and he feels too warm.

It kills him to know that what he felt just then was a lie.

* * *

_“I’m making a choice, Tony.”_

_Tony feels the dread inside of him, eager and ready to feast on his flesh. He turns to face her, the soft light of the morning sun peeking through the blinds. It only makes the apprehension worse, as if the world is trying to gently let him down once more._

_Pepper’s gaze cuts through him. All his insecurities and fears run amuck in the open and he desperately wants to flee down to his haven, his workshop._

_“Pep-” He begins, ready to have a distracting, amusing retort. He wants to deflect this conversation and move it to another time (preferably never)._

_“And it can’t be you.” She shakes her head, the soft tendrils of her red hair floating back and forth._

_Tony opens him mouth to comment (“Stay with me. Don’t leave. Don’t abandon me,” is what he wants to say so badly) and she places a finger onto his lips to silence him._

_Pepper is right in front of him, he says to himself, but she’s never been farther from him._

_Tony watches her fade away._

* * *

Tony has always loved.

He’s loved so much with that big heart of his. A heart that keeps giving and giving until only a tiny piece was kept for himself (and even that was crushed).

Sometimes love isn’t enough.

Love was supposedly the reason why Jarvis held a small toddler Tony to his chest, brushing fingers through the young genius’s hair and whispering bold, adventurous tales and sweet apologies into the ears of a child that never would know parental love. His homemade spaghetti satisfied Tony’s greedy appetite, always hungry for both the butler’s meal and his affections.

Love was why Jarvis’s heart broke completely, knowing that with all the love and adoration he gave to the smallest Stark, he could never heal Tony entirely.

Because some wounds run deeper than the outer surface of the skin.

Love was supposedly the reason why his father used his fists as a substitute for his words. The smell of spilt whiskey soured the air and broken bottle glass would find itself in the flesh of Tony’s skinny arms. Fresh blood dripped down from his clutched nose and his left eye was swollen shut and colored black.

Tony would stare up wearily from the floor and would wonder why love wasn’t the fairytale glow of happy endings as he prepared himself for the next hit.

Love was supposedly the reason why his mother ran away to socialite charities with a brief chaste kiss to his head upon her return as compensation for her absence. Her presence as translucent as a wandering ghost, she’d dance across the halls of the manor.

Fluttering here and there, her love for her son was true yet fickle, one second there and gone the next as simple as the seasons change.

Love, he thought, love is the relationship he has with Rhodey. A comfortable weight in knowing that his best friend always has his back. A brother he holds so dear, one who firmly plants himself by Tony’s side but also calls him out when he needs it.

Love was the reason why Tony’s honeybear is crippled.

The end was always the same.

It sings in his ears, a collateral ambush of betrayal, heartbreak, and disbelief.

Love wasn’t enough.

He wasn’t enough.

He’s convinced that he never will be.

It’s the fleeting thought he has before the machine takes everything from him again.

* * *

_“I’m making a choice, Tony.”_

_The snow settles on the land cleanly, no trace or sign that Autumn and Spring have come by._

_White on white for miles to see._

_Tony closes his eyes, his lashes touching skin. The pit in his stomach grows and he’s always known this fate. It hid in routine of his daily life, waiting for the right moment to strike him._

_Steve looks at him with his soft, baby blue eyes. Steve is just as perfect as he always is. Short, cropped tussled blonde hair and a glow to his skin, a small pink flush around his nose from the cold._

_His strong fingers gently caressing the sides of Tony’s cheeks. Tony holds back the sensation behind his eyes, he holds back his heart the best he can (he is failing miserably)._

_Tony keeps his mouth shut, lips quivering slightly (and it isn’t from the cold). The words are all clogged up in his throat._

_(“Let me keep him. Let him choose me. Let him love me.” He chants)_

_It’s cold but Steve is warm. Steve is the only thing keeping him warm._

_A snowflake lands on his lashes, Tony lets a tear fall and tells himself it’s the melting snowflake. He braces himself for the next words._

_Hands sprinkle across Tony’s ribs, spreading warmth deviously with no mind to how it makes Tony’s heart beat just a little bit faster and how it makes him feel just a little bit lighter._

_Steve brushes his lips, soft and chaste on Tony’s skin, and leads them to Tony’s ear._

_(“Don’t say it. Please God, don’t say it.”)_

_“It’s not going to be you.”_

_Steve’s gone._

_Tony only feels lost in the chilling winter snow._

* * *

All he sees is red.

He doesn’t comprehend the boiling hot anger that bubbles in his chest. He doesn’t get why the burn behind his eyes happens.

He feels the brittle promises that were made to him, alluring and comfortable (too sweet to be true). He feels the sting of jabs and sharp words aimed and shot at him. Years and years of it coming at him all at once.

“Embrace it, Anthony.”

He feels every nerve light up, the punches drawn onto his face, his body. Beer bottles and whiskey glasses shattered onto his body, the smell of alcohol pungent and strong. Floral perfume and the hurting absence of a love he’s always chasing.

Rage, his body screams.

He hears a feminine cry, the blunt end of a gun and sputtering, slurry pleas, and the crushing weight of a widowed child. Metal glinting in the glaze of the moonlight and somber, grey eyes staring back at him.

“Let it devour you.”

Rage and rage, he says to himself.

He feels the gentle soft chaste kisses. He feels carefree smiles and intimate affection. He feels pleasantly warm and safe. Like the ocean breeze wafting and covering him in its waves. Then he plunges and falls into an unforgiving raging storm, and he can’t breathe.

Infinitely chilling, it makes its way into him.

He feels the bones of his chest cave with bruises, the heavy puff of air from his mouth visible in the Siberian winter. His face is sore and bloodied, the echo of three words repeating and repeating (“So was I,” he says on the verge of tears).

“Just let go.”

Rage, he holds to himself.

Liquid smooth black seeps from his pores, flowing over his skin like a comforting blanket. A remedial balm to his lost, lonely soul. It covers every inch of body and cocoons him in its embrace. It hardens around him like armor, protecting him.

There’s no yelling anymore, barely the weighty heaving from his lungs can be heard.

Tony feels bone tired, a sluggish drawl droning on in his mind. He falls and slumps over the floor, energy completely depleted out of his body (physically and emotionally).

He feels empty.

Stein hoists and holds Tony up in his arms.

“Good boy,” Stein cooes.

* * *

“Stop!”

The deafening crash of vibranium over alloy, crippling and crumpling it’s all that he hears. It comes in a rush of waves and overpowers him for a second.

Tony is gasping for air, oxygen abandoning him without a second thought. He clutches his chest, a feeble attempt of regaining breath.

His throat is raw and his tenor comes out all stuttered and gritty. His irises are eaten by pupils, an unpleasant flashback igniting behind his eyelids.

Tony whispers ghosts to himself with weight, realization dawning on him. He stares wide at the ground, the cement hypnotizing him back to the past.

Tony looks up and stares at Steve before moving his eyes to the man beside him. Bucky shifts a little besides him at the emotions running in the other man’s eyes.

Tony eye’s speak of asteroids crashing down and cratering the earth below, the stars blinking out of sight and vanishing into the dark depths of the night sky never to be seen again, the howls and cries of the ocean as the waves drown all those above it, and the walls of the dry desert, always thirsty and regretfully oblivious to the oasis it seeks.

“Don’t look for me.”

He gives both men another pensive glance before running towards the edge of the building and jumps down the ledge without any hesitation.

An agent catches the movement and quickly pulls the trigger. A shot rings and Tony has a bullet in his calf but continues regardless.

Both super soldiers are shocked from surprise, stiff before moving into action and swiftly running after Tony, muscles working efficiently to make up for the loss of time and increased distance. They scout the perimeters for a few rounds before coming to the same conclusion.

Tony’s gone.

Tony runs.

He runs.

And he runs.

There is no end goal in sight. There is no destination. He wanders as far as his body allows him to go. His legs eventually cramp for a second from overuse and and it only takes that one second to clumsily fall down a trodden dirt path.

The flesh of his hands bleeds from the friction of the rocky sediment and quickly seals itself a second later. It doesn’t stop him, he uses the momentum to quickly straighten up.

Tony keeps going and going.

And he never looks back.

He doesn't take the urge to look behind him.

He just runs and runs off into nowhere.

He goes back to the only thing he really knows is real.

Tony wakes up.

This time he doesn't scream.

“Who are you?”

Tony opens his eyes. 

They're not his mother's warm honey glazed brown. 

* * *

_He vividly remembers the day Jarvis was born._

_Long, exhausting nights of gruesome coding and coffee binges like no other. Tony was so frustrated because the last few prototypes were close but not what he was looking for. He pulled at his hair and kept thinking until he passed out from exhaustion._

_When he woke up, there was dry drool on the corner of his mouth and his hair looked like a bird’s nest but he had an epiphany and that gorgeous, blue globe of code was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Tony won’t admit to it, but he definitely cried when Jarvis spoke for the first time._

_More vividly, he remembers the day he killed Jarvis._

_Flickering and close to erasure, Tony watched as Jarvis blinked out of existence, eaten away by a witch’s wicked spell of fear and anxiety._

_A gaping black hole opened up inside him, one he knew would never, ever close. An ugly reminder of what’s he done and what he had lost that day._

_Tony plays the first recording of Jarvis._

_“Good morning, sir.”_

_He plays every voice sample in his storage and every message that Jarvis has ever spoken. The one that hurts the most (because it’s the one said with the most love) is when Tony comes back home (from Afghanistan, from falling through a portal knowing that it might be the last thing he does, from everything)._

_It’s the one he’ll never hear again._

_“Welcome home, sir.”_

_He plays it on a loop as he’s bundled under his sheets. The building itself is still under construction, plenty of the structure is damaged and unusable. But Tony cleans aside the glass and broken parts of a corner in his lab and finds spare bed sheets and a pillow to put on the floor before laying in them._

_The alcohol is tempting but he wants to just soak in Jarvis and keep the memory of him untainted and untouched._

_“Welcome home, sir.”_

_Tony feels the hot press of wetness clinging to his eyelashes and the tightening in his nose. The lab is frightening silent and dim, with only the sound of his sniffles clear._

_The next time Jarvis speaks, Tony can’t hold it anymore._

_“Welcome home, sir.”_

_He’s just a slave to the heartache._  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lots of life stuff happened (and is still happening) but i hope you all enjoyed the new chapter!! i can never get them uploaded at normal times its like 335am over here
> 
> /sips tea/ idk how this fic could be angsty-er but it happened in this chapter...I am available for cuddling in blankets and big warm hugs if you need them
> 
> i also made a tumblr (boiledtamago) so feel free to chat me up!! (i think i'll take prompts if you guys wanna send them ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ )


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